Star Wars: The Skywalker Heresy: Episode IV - Destiny of the Force
by trekaddict
Summary: A few months after Ahsoka returned with Master Unduli, and just as the fleet is extra-weak, a new threat surfaces from deeper in the Unknown Regions, while on Weitun the Skywalkers are expecting their third child. As all this is going on, Padmé's family is beginning to pay the price for her actions as they begin to feel Imperial anger. Rated T. Fourth part of the Heresyverse.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

"Exiting hyperspace… now."

The Chiss frigate flashed back into realspace in a system that the Ascendancy only knew by an alphanumeric code from their stellar cartography databanks. As usual with being on patrol, they began with a sensor scan; the young Ensign at that station settled himself down for another boring watch, as no artificial energy sources, nor anything of note to the Ascendency was expected in this backwater. He suppressed a yawn and prepared the standard scanning cycles as the vessel settled into its normal patrol pattern.

Even though this system was on the very edge of Chiss-controlled space, there was no one out this way to threaten the Ascendancy. The only dangers lay corewards and… elsewhere, very much not in this direction. Alas, the CEDF was tasked with patrolling all of Chiss space, so that was what they did. It was their duty.

Backwards or not, space was vast, so it still took them more than an hour to move past the half-way point of their patrol run. The Ensign snuck a glance at the chrono set into his console, but it was still nearly twice that time before he could go off-duty. He yawned again behind his hand, reached over to where he had a cup of the Chiss equivalent to caf and took a sip. Another glance at his scopes, another big fat load of nothing. He sighed and tapped the console with his index fingers before readjusting his position and sitting up as straight as he could manage. This was not because he could see the frigate's commander—a particularly striking representative of the Chiss female form—walking by, but because for all this being as boring as watching paint dry, he was an officer …a Chiss officer.

Though largely unknown to the wider galaxy, the Chiss were a martial people. They always had been, even in the days of primitive weaponry. Now, thousands of years removed from that time, they had expanded outward from their ice-bound homeworld into the starry void of what most called the Unknown Regions. Occasionally they would have contact with a trader from some place like Corellia and there were local groups—pirates and slavers not the least among them—but mostly, the Chiss supremacy in this section of the galaxy was unchallenged. Of course, there was that other danger, that other threat, but they were elsewhere.

"Status?"

His commander's voice came from the left, so he turned towards her and shook his head. "Nothing but white noise, Ma'am."

She wasn't known to display much emotion, but he knew that she was as annoyed about this posting as he was bored with it. What was worse, he knew that it wasn't really anyone's fault. Someone had to do it, and this cycle, the lot had fallen on them, that was all.

"Keep on it, Ensign."

So he did. For most of another hour he ran the scans he was supposed to run, half of his mind on lunch in the mess that he was looking forward to. He yawned again and tapped the blank surface of his console with his middle finger, imitating the beat of a popular ditty that was making the rounds. While making her rounds of the bridge, the commander did notice this; she disliked such distractions, but given the nature of their mission, she decided to give the officer some leeway. Their screens and scopes displayed quite a boring stretch of black.

Nothing, nothing, more nothing, even more nothing, a big, fat load of no-

His train of thought halted when one of the lateral magnetic anomaly sensors registered a faint ping, indicating an artificial metal source. With a sigh, the young Ensign redirected some of his more sensitive, short-range arrays towards the contact, and that was when he really began to pay attention. The debris was definitely artificial, and scattered over the surface of a small moon at the very edge of this system's habitable zone.

Time to notify the commander. He called out his contact, and a very short time later she was standing behind him, studying the readouts over his shoulder. A small part of his mind was distracted by her being so close, but he ruthlessly quashed those feelings. They were, after all, entirely inappropriate.

"So?"

"It looks like the remains of a ship. No energy sources I can see from here, but these are clearly alloys used in ship construction pretty much anywhere in the Core Worlds."

"An intruder then?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"So what destroyed them?" she asked.

The Ensign knew she wasn't expecting an answer and instead focused even more of his sensor systems on the target. He was increasingly frustrated when they told him nothing really new, so after waiting for a few seconds he spoke his analysis aloud. "Commander, this is on the extreme edge of the habitable zone. If we want more information, we'll have to get a lot closer than this."

She considered for a few moments before obviously deciding to listen to the advice of her Primary Tracking Officer. "We'll do that. Helm, prepare to execute a microjump to the location Tracking will give you."

"Yes, Commander."

Once closer to the moon, the Ensign's scopes became a lot clearer. "It's definitely a medium-sized freighter of some kind. By the spread of the pattern and the condition of the wreckage as I can see it, this happened a few months ago, no more than five or six at the outside."

"Did they crash? An accident or malfunction of some sort, perhaps?" his commander asked, trying to ascertain if there was something that could pose a danger to her ship and crew… or the Ascendency as a whole.

"I… don't think so. The pattern indicates a high-speed impact, but it's spread too wide to have scattered because of that. To me it looks like this debris was scattered in space and just so happened to impact here. There might be more out there somewhere, but it's been dispersed by now."

"Which means we would never find it even if we tried."

The Commander sighed and walked back over to her command chair. "So is there any way to tell where they came from?"

"It's definitely from the Core Worlds, going by the materials alone. The fragments we can see without going down there are too damaged to tell what make of ship. Any estimate would be sheer guesswork."

As a rule, that was something not encouraged in either branch of the Chiss military. They did not seek out contact with other species, something that had gotten one of their more brilliant commander's in trouble over a decade before. That said, they did monitor groups of interest to make certain that the Ascendency was kept safe from outside intrusion.

Waiting for his commanding officer to decide what to do next, the Ensign decided to do something that he hadn't considered before. He took control of the best visual sensors installed on the ship, zoomed in as much as he could and began to inspect the fragments one by one. Of course, they were too damaged to make out anything but that it had been a ship of some sort; eventually what had been a desperate throw of the dice rewarded him however. ON one of the largest fragments he discovered some sort of insignia. More than half of it was missing and it was badly discoloured from blast damage, but enough was visible to let him make out a dark red and dark blue-spoked wheel with the remnants of a white bird superimposed on it.

The Ensign allowed himself a grin. "Well, at least we know who it belonged to."

The commander crossed the bridge again and grinned as well. "Put it up on the main screen."

"The Republic."

"Do we report this?" her second in command, only now reaching the bridge, asked.

"This is a clear intrusion by those… people into our space, so of course we will call it in."

Not much love was lost between those two, everyone aboard knew it and nobody openly admitted it.1

"What's more," the Captain continued in a cold voice that sent shivers down the Ensign's back, "something destroyed that ship and I want to find out what it was. Whatever that might be may pose a threat to the Ascendancy as much as the crew of that ship." She pointed at the screen where the burnt Republic insignia was still visible. "Look well and remember this symbol. They are interlopers."

The officer visibly deflated and muttered something the Ensign couldn't hear before moving to his own station.

"So, what are the conditions down there?"

"Marginal for habitation, Captain." the Ensign replied after checking his own readouts. "It won't be a pleasure cruise, but we shouldn't need suits."

"Good. All teams should go armed, despite lack of lifeform readings."

It took them about an hour to recover the large fragment with the insignia on it while the Captain talked to someone higher up in the hierarchy. Orders were to remain and analyse the debris as best they could with their on-board equipment before a freighter appeared to take the recovered pieces back to Csilla for further study. As the Ensign got off-shift and headed for the mess, he mused that this hadn't been such a boring patrol after all.

If you were in the Fleet, you had to be blind not to know that the Rebel group that had so grandiosely termed itself the last remnant of the Galactic Republic was hiding somewhere in the Unknown Regions, using a few old ships to launch raids on Imperial supply convoys. So why was the Government so concerned with them? Was there more to them than a few stolen freighters and a lot of talking? Was there something to the rumours that a few Jedi had survived the battle of Yavin and maybe found their way to that so-called remnant of the Republic?

What was sure was that Admiral Arilani had no idea just exactly where the Rebels had their base, or the frigate's commander wouldn't have been given the order to try and recover any astronavigation data that might have survived.

Closer to home was the issue of what had destroyed them? The fragment of the hull that had shown the insignia clearly indicated that the damage had come from the outside and had used some sort of energy weapon. Someone had attacked and destroyed them.

But who? The Empire?

Unlikely. Not only was this system clear on the far side of where the Ascendancy faced the core of the galaxy, but going by the Intelligence briefings she'd heard before setting off on this patrol, Palpatine was actively courting the Ascendancy and taking great pains to not offend them. So who was it? Few… or rather more none of the various smaller powers in the area would risk angering the Ascendancy by attacking someone else, even a few scummy rebels, within their space.

And what were these people doing here in the first place?

Scouting out Chiss borders maybe?

Then there was the chance that... _they_ had something to do with it. And if that was true, then war was around the corner. And it would be a war that the Ascendancy would be hard pressed to win, even if any hypothetical alliance with the Empire were to happen.

"Commander?"

It was her chief engineer, approaching her as she was about to step through the hatch back onto the bridge.

"What is it?"

"Commander, we have analysed the wreckage, and… it's not good."

She frowned and motioned for him to continue.

"First, it was definitely hit by weapons fire—the blast pattern and the type of damage makes that obvious enough. All this happened maybe four or five months ago; we've been able to confirm that much, at least."

"How? The moon doesn't have atmosphere, so there wouldn't be any corrosion."

"There was… organic residue in a few partially protected nooks and crannies."

She sighed at that. "What else?"

"It really appears to be a small freighter. Sullustan or Corellian maybe, but that's about all I can tell you."

She nodded. "Thank you. Return to your duties."

There was little more to do now than wait for the transport. Somehow she knew that this wouldn't be the end of it, but she had no idea just what had been started by her discovery.

 **tbc**

 **So here we go again!**

 **The newest Episode is, I think, a good place to make an official statement: I like the new movie in spite of it's flaws, but I vastly prefer Legends. That's what I grew up with and that's what I will exclusively write in. So with everything, you can from now on assume Legends unless I say different.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"So let's face it, the Alderaan Royal Guard isn't exactly the pinnacle of modern warfare."

"True. However, consider this, dear husband of mine: The Guard isn't supposed to be anything of the sort. Quite aside from guarding the Viceroy and his family, they are a system defence force. A well-funded and equipped one, yes, but no more than that. You don't need Star Destroyers for anti-piracy patrols."

Trun grinned and took a sip from his cup of Caf. Varann had become fiercely protective of the planet, to the point that Trun was seriously reconsidering re-locating there at some point. Of course 'at some point' could mean tomorrow or in twenty years. When one was working for the Director of Imperial Intelligence, nothing was entirely certain. In the end, he didn't merely want to do it to please his wife, but also because he had been there a few times now and it was a far nicer place to live for a family than the one, massive city that covered Coruscant's surface.

"Which still leaves us with the question of why the Rebels seem to have managed to steal one of their best frigates."

She sighed. "Yes, it does."

Trun was all too aware that Senator Organa had been feeling the heat from both his own legislature, as well as Emperor Palpatine, when the [I]Another Chance[/I] had disappeared and then turned up, quite unexpectedly, raiding an outpost at the edge of the Corporate Sector wearing Rebel markings. Oh, the official story, as far as the investigation had been able to establish, was plausible enough, but Varann had let slip one day that Organa was convinced that there was more to it. And yet, for all his attempts to find out, exactly nothing had ever been discovered. This made people in very high places uneasy, if not outright suspicious. Trun himself had looked into it after Director Isard had opined that it may have been a smokescreen to hide Organa's involvement in it, but that hadn't been the case, as far as he could tell.

He'd laid the problem to rest a long time ago and only dragged it out when he wanted to tease his wife with it, as he had just now, and the grin on her face made it obvious that she knew how he meant it.

So instead of going on, he studied her lovely face and decided that yes, he really was the luckiest man in the galaxy.

The diner they were eating at wasn't all that far from where the Imperial Palace was reaching into the sky, and had been run by some sort of shady Besalisk who had disappeared into nowhere after the Pacification. Now, it catered to mid-level government employees and Senatorial aides who could not, or would not, afford to eat at the Senate. He wasn't really one of either group, but for all his access to the halls of power that working directly for [insert first name here] Isard brought him, he was about as anonymous as any of the legions of personal aides and other assorted flunkies that crowded the Senate District.

"So, have the girls settled in with your sister?"

Varaan nodded. "They don't like that we both have to go, but I think they'll have some fun there. Better that, than nothing for the holidays."

The thought of being separated from their children dampened their moods, so instead of ordering another round of caf, and even though neither of them had to be at their respective ships for another hour, he called for the serving droid and paid for their food. They didn't speak to one another as they picked up their repulsorlift-assisted bags and walked back towards the transport that would take them to the Senate. There they had to go their separate ways, as Trun had to take a different shuttle to reach the transport that was to take him to Kuat. Why he was supposed to go there instead of directly to Naboo was something that Director Isard had refused to reveal, only saying that he was supposed to report to the local Moff who would be giving him pre-positioned Orders. He knew that the Director had some sort of hold over the Moff in that sector, so it all made sense.

His wife, on the other hand, would be meeting up with Senator Organa and his daughter, embark on probably the [I]Tantive IV[/I] and travel to Alderaan in far more luxury than Trun would have on a fast, but damn tiny and probably cramped, T-2c for a lot more than the two hours he could tolerate shuttles before being severely irritated.

On reaching the platform that serviced the public transport lines, connecting the building with the various districts of the planet-spanning city, Trun, who had a few more stops to go, turned towards his wife.

"I hate leaving them alone, even if it's with a relative."

"I know." Varann sighed, and reached over to take his hand. "But they'll be fine. It's not like anything could happen to either of us."

Trun smiled thinly in response, not knowing if he should feel sad or delighted that his wife seemed to be buying the obvious cover stories he was forced to give her every time he left for some misbegotten Rebel stronghold at the other end of the galaxy.

"Of course." he said instead of anything else that he might have wanted to blurt out at that moment.

The shuttle came in for a landing, and without much ado or any tears, the pair exchanged their goodbyes, with Varann watching the departure before she turned and walked towards the senate with quick and determined steps, pulling her luggage behind her. By the time she crossed the threshold into the inside of the building, past the various security checkpoints that she could see, as well as those she couldn't, Varann had schooled her face into a picture of businesslike concern for the task ahead. It was more because it was a good mask to hide all sorts of thoughts behind than, rather because of any issues with the tasks that lay before her, though her distress was related.

She plain hated having to lie to her husband, to pretend that she pretended to be ignorant of what it meant when he told their neighbours and friends that he was working 'a boring office job at the Imperial Bureau of Resource Research'. She also wanted to hide that she had serious difficulties with reconciling the man she loved as dearly as life itself with her hatred for his job, the work he did and the system he represented to her. For her part, she had to conceal that she served the Republic in her own small way.

As she stepped into the lift that would take her to Senator Organa's offices, she once again reminded herself that Trun wouldn't hesitate for long, if they were lucky, before turning in the Senator. If her husband ever found out that he and Mon Mothma were effectively the eyes and ears of the Republic in the Imperial Senate, it would spell trouble for all of them. She knew that she willingly ignored what would surely happen to herself in such an event, but the nightmares she sometimes had, particularly when Trun was off on some errand for Isard, were terrifying enough.

"Miss?"

Varann realized that the lift had stopped and that someone was holding the doors open, waiting for her to get out. Without a word and ignoring the concerned looks she knew she was drawing, Varann almost ran out of the lift and down the corridor. By the time she reached the reception desk, where a familiar droid admitted her into the rooms occupied by the Senator from Alderaan, no one knew that she had been having a minor crisis of faith. None of that was noticeable when she joined the Senator and the rest of his party that would travel with him to his homeworld. Polite and respectful greetings were exchanged, nothing more. Aside from the rooms almost certainly being bugged, none of those present—(with the exception of the Senator, herself and Captain Antilles)—knew that House Organa's declaration of loyalty to the Empire weren't honest… To put it lightly, and whatever they might show on the surface. There was no need to pull them into something most, if not all, of them didn't want a part of; there was no need to increase the risk by having a greater number of people aware that there was a secret to keep, and if they could honestly say that they'd known nothing, that might save them if things went very badly wrong.

Final orders were given, those who would remain behind and 'mind the shop' returned to whatever tasks they had been doing, while the rest of the group moved to board the ship. Soon enough, Varann was alone in the quarters she'd been assigned and finally succumbed to her emotions, letting the tears flow freely. She knew that, one day or another, she would have to answer for what she had done. For now, she would serve the Republic how she might, and if the Sabacc deck came up with The Destroyed Starship, she would hope she could survive the fallout.

* * *

In contrast to his wife, Trun was more bored then emotional. Much to his surprise, the shuttle was not only empty—but for himself and the two-man crew—but it was not a standard T-2c by any stretch. It may have started out as a representative of that particular class, but going by the background hum of the engines and the hyperspace speed that was being displayed when he walked forward into the cockpit, someone had managed to make this thing go a lot faster than the standard version. This was why he reached Kuat a full day earlier than he'd expected, even including a refuelling stop at some backwater agricultural world.

The shuttle slid past the gleaming hull of a Victory-Class Star Destroyer in one of the new, single-module docks. The ship was slowly being stripped of it's parts by an army of droids and actual workers; Trun watched this process as the shuttle made its way towards the heart of the massive facility, the ring-shaped space station that encircled the planet. Partly to distract himself from the boredom, rather than out of public or personal interest, he studied the station in more detail as they approached. The sensor feed from the shuttle to his Datapad allowed him to look at everything the crew could see, and judging by that, the Fleet expansion was as big as it was supposed to be. Most of the berths were being taken up by military construction, with the civilian sector being relegated to about a fifth or so of the station and the majority of the modular docks springing up at other locations in the system, although from what Trun had seen, it would not take long before these docks were all over the primary shipyards. The ships being constructed ranged from the Imperial-Class Star Destroyer and it's variants to small patrol vessels, making it obvious that the Emperor was taking the continued existence of the Rebellion very seriously indeed.

On the other hand, Trun knew, Kuat Drive Yards did not like it, as that meant effectively giving the civilian market to their Corellian rivals; this had to rankle them, even with the massive military contracts coming their way, in addition to what they had already produced for the Empire. The Kuati ruling class were just that sort of arrogant bastards, and he was glad that he didn't have to deal with them beyond having to walk past the odd administrative flunky or dockworker.

Of all the things he had expected when he stepped off the shuttle, being alone in a specially cleared airlock-reception area with the Empire's second-in-command waiting for him was not it. He had met Dath Paqua on occasion, but couldn't say that he knew her at all well, nor had he known that she was off Coruscant, never mind that she would be meeting him here. Long story short, her presence here came utterly out of the proverbial blue.

Paqua was standing on the opposite end of the room, looking at him with her standard look of annoyance and barely contained anger on her face. Trun quickly caught himself, and as was befitting a senior Intelligence officer, his face showed no emotion. If he had, the emotion would have been surprise, but he showed none of that. He was sure that as a Force-Sensitive, she could sense his emotions anyway, but there were appearances to be maintained. He bowed respectfully and said, by way of a greeting, "My Lady, I am honoured to meet you, as unexpected as it is."

Paqua nodded. "Likewise, although you were expected." She continued, "We are on a mission of personal importance to the Emperor, and until the proper juncture, utter secrecy must be maintained."

"I see," Trun replied, and Paqua nodded in approval, sensing that he truly did.

"Director Isard was asked to provide the temporary services of someone who could handle the delicate task that lays before us. You were chosen because he said that you were one of his best." She said this in a manner which suggested she wwas pre-empting Trun's next question. Given her abilities, he didn't doubt this.

"I am honoured, milady."

She snorted with what could almost be mistaken for humour at a distance. "You're not, but you will do your best to carry this mission through."

Okay, now Trun was beginning to feel creeped out. What was it with Force users?

Paqua ignored that and instead handed him a code cylinder. Trun inserted it into his datapad and saw that she had, not only legitimate Orders for him, but that those orders were countersigned by the Emperor himself and thus automatically overrode anything else he may have been told. He didn't know how he felt about being known in the highest circles possible, but there was nothing for it but to do what he was told. The alternative—refusal of the orders—would only result in death for Trun, Varann and his daughters, not to mention his other immediate family members.

"Follow me, Captain." she said, referring to the rank he still officially held in the Navy.

Sensing that Paqua didn't expect an answer, he grabbed the handle of his luggage and followed in her wake. He had to struggle to keep up with her, so when she eventually turned towards the docking tube of a ship, he was not exactly out of breath but still glad of a short break. The tube was a luxury one and included windows as well as a holoprojector that allowed any user to see the ship he was moving towards; Trun glanced out, only to be startled when he could see the distinctive, dagger-shaped profile of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. Okay, he'd known that Paqua had been given a new command ship for reasons that he did not care to examine any closer, but this ship… It looked a lot more menacing than a normal ImpClass did. To begin with, it was painted black from bow to stern. It was not the black of cloth or of gems, but a deeper, darker black that struck fear in Trun's heart, even as a loyal Imperial officer. The ship seemed to be barely visible against the background of space, with the sunlight being swallowed up by the hull. The exceptions to this were the massive Imperial seals painted on each side of the dorsal and ventral hull where it was the widest, the superstructure between them, the seals detailed in a white paint which stood out more starkly for the near-utter blackness of the massive vessel. Two more seals were on the side of the bridge module; they were all lit up by what had to be some of the largest lamps possible with modern technology. All in all, it looked menacing, and he found the name floating under the ship itself fitting. [I]Iron Fist[/I] indeed. He found the hull colouration appropriate—Iron, though he had rarely seen the pure stuff, was said to be black.

Paqua had no time for his musings on her ship, however, so he couldn't study her any further. He could, however, continue to follow this Force-using woman aboard the sixteen hundred meter-long vessel. On the inside, it looked like any other Navy ship, from the uniforms people were wearing to the standard architecture.

"Captain?"

"Yes, milady?"

She motioned at a young officer that had somehow materialized next to them.

"Follow the Lieutenant to your quarters and report to me on the bridge in one hour. No more, no less… One hour."

"Yes, Ma'am."

 **tbc**

 **I wrote most of this while having the Star Trek Megasuite playlist off YouTube running in the background. There's a reason for that. As much as I love the Star Wars music and think that John Williams should be made Eternal President of Earth, when I write I prefer stuff that's more easy listening than that. Star Trek, awesome in it's own right and in an utterly different manner fits the bill.**

 **Re the ship: If a Smuggler can have an Imperial Star Destroyer painted red, the Imps can have one painted black.**

 **Up next: We meet up with one of my all-time favourites.**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The _Chimaera_ shook under the impact of a last pair of Concussion missiles into her weakening upper shields. After the first salvo, fired before anyone had had a chance to raise the deflector shields and after that same salvo had taken out the bridge deflector shields, the Pirate Uglies had made suicidal runs at the bridge tower in an effort to take out the brain of the ship before the Imperal weight in firepower and numbers came to bear. Even as the TIEs scrambled out of the hangar and turned to engage the pirate armada facing the ship, four of the Uglies made a run towards the bridge. It was suicidal, and they knew it. They also knew that this was their last chance to defeat [I]Chimaera[/I] or at least cripple her enough to be able to flee.

Most of them were shot down by the forward batteries as they made their approach, but one of them, a creation of an ARC-170 nose with a set of Z-95 wings managed to fire a single laser bolt right at the bridge before being blown out of the sky.

It hit before anyone could order the blast shields to be lowered. The material the bridge windows were made out of did it's job well and lasted exactly two seconds longer than the blast, so when they failed the bridge and everyone on it were not instantly vaporized. However, those unfortunate enough to be standing on the top-level of the bridge were instantly sucked out before the automatic cutouts could lower the blast shields.

Among the unfortunate few was the Captain of the ship, the annoying assistant navigation officer and a few other unfortunate souls. No one on the bridge could do anything but watch and hold on for dear life.

Which left the second in command as the acting Captain of the ship. Even though he held the rank of Captain in the Imperial Navy, Gilad Pellaeon had 'merely' been the Executive Officer, a mixture of seniority and politics being to blame for that. However much he had wanted a command of his own, this was not the way he had wanted it to happen, and as he struggled back to his feet from behind the chair he'd held onto he could not help but think of those that had died today already.

"Tactical, status?"

Over in the tactical section, the officer he'd been speaking to coughed and struggled back into his chair and checked all the scopes tied into his section. "Our fighters are engaging the enemy at their own initiative, and there are six more craft rising from the surface."

"Fighter Controller, have our half our fighters screen our damaged side against any attackers, have the rest of them hunt down and destroy those pirates. Helm, hard roll port, show them our unengaged side! Tactical, open fire on the launchers, just saturate the area if you have to."

Acknowledgements echoed around the bridge.

He didn't need to look outside to see the enormous number of green turbolaser bolts that slowly began to vaporize asteroids looked around for the now-acting-Executive-Officer, but couldn't see him anywhere. "Lieutenant-Commander Piett!"

"Sir?" Fiermus Piett appeared out from behind a pillar near the back area of the bridge. His normal station, so not surprising.

"Get me a damage report as soon as you can."

Piett nodded. "Yes, Captain." he said and continued without skipping a beat. "Starboard bridge deflector shield generators are off-line and the starboard ones were overloaded. No repair time given. No significant damage other than here and has been reported yet and nothing that would impair fighting efficiency. Casualties are minor only. And... that."

He pointed at the now missing windows and the Captain remembered why he had plucked the promising young officer from his backwater posting in spite of his lack of core-world background and had him field-promoted on his own responsibility. He was about to find out if Piett could handle the weight. He had just passed the first test with flying colours, but there was more to come.

They had both been placed into their new positions in a brutally abrupt manner, and now their crew depended on them to bring them out of this disaster of an engagement in one piece.

For the moment he continued to observe the battle as it developed around them. The TIEs tore the pirates to shreds and the ship's turbolaser batteries vaporized so many asteroids that a void began to develop in the field. No more missiles were incoming.

Surviving pirate fighters began to withdraw towards the larger of the two moons and out of weapons range of [I]Chimaera[/I]. Given what had happened already and what intelligence had been stolen from that depot taking the ship closer in was a risk, but he weighed it against loosing most of his fighter group and decided to do it. "Tracking, are there any active signal sources on that moon?"

"None detected so far, but we are still too far away."

"Maintain surveillance and let me as soon as you detect anything, Lieutenant. Communications, status of the ground team?"

The Communications Officer spoke a few words into his headset. "They have reached the camp perimeter and await orders to begin the assault."

Pellaeon frowned. Recent events had thrown the timetable out the airlock, and even though he was tempted to order the ground team to go in without support, but if there was one thing he had learned from the war it was that you didn't gamble with the lives of your men unless you really had to, and he had never been much of a Sabbac player.

"Tell them to hold until we send in the air support, but if they see any movement to evacuate or use those weapons against us, they are to prevent that at any cost."

"Yes, Sir."

"Helm, move us into maximum weapon's range of the moon's surface. We need to be able to support our TIEs if we have to."

"Do you think that they are hiding the stolen proton torpedoes there?" Piett asked, "We might be walking into the same sort of trap again."

"That is a possibility, but if they have the torpedoes rigged up to be fired..." Pellaeon trailed off and Piett passed another test when he picked up what his Captain had been meaning to say.

"Then why haven't they used them already?" He paused and frowned at the display that showed the battle as it played out. "They may have stationed them on the moon, hoping to lure us in."

"Maybe, but then why not just fire them at us right away? It is possible that they simply didn't want to risk us not taking the bait they showed us when we jumped in?"

"Possible," Piett conceded, "but it could be that they weren't willing to lose the more valuable part of their merchandise to sell to the Rebels."

"In any event, this ship has been tracing this shipment for five days now, and I will be damned if I let them get away with this." Pellaeon exclaimed. Everyone else on the bridge could only see the picture of an Imperial Officer, but it was more than the hatred for pirates that had been institutional with the various military forces throughout galactic history. Only those who had served with Pellaeon long enough knew that he felt this as a personal challenge and knew very well that his continued command of the _Chimaera_ and in fact his continued career depended on his salvaging this gods-awful mess he'd inherited. Piett on the other hand was only too aware that in the light of his background his own continued success in the Navy depended on the Captain's patronage, quite aside from risking taint by association.

If the pirates actually managed to use them then having shorted out shield generators would be the last of their problems. There had been enough stolen from the depot to keep the Rebels in torpedoes for a considerable time, and certainly more than enough to destroy or at least severely cripple a Star Destroyer along with the careers of any bridge officers that happened to be on board. Not something either Pellaeon or Piett relished, each for reasons of their own.

So yes, they were very well motivated to succeed.

To Piett, there were two fundamental questions right now, one: 'Where were the torpedoes?' Not too easily answered, especially when he had to expect the lot of them being fired at him any second now. Two: 'If they're not here, have they shipped them to the Rebels yet?' He didn't really want to know the answer to the second one.

As for the first, he wasn't prone to speculating or guessing out loud, but he suspected that if they were still here, then they were likely stored somewhere. Rigging up a few crude missile launchers out of the tranport canisters and slaving them to the firecontrol of a ship was one thing, setting up torpedo platforms was another entirely, given that the pirates had stolen starship-grade weapons in the case of the torpedoes and not the smaller models that were being fitted to some gunboats or the new TIE-bombers he'd heard rumours about. No, these were the big boys, designed to be fired from and take out capital ships.

'Not something he wanted to see flying at Mrs. Piett's little boy', he thought as he watched the death of the last pirates.

"Captain, our TIEs have discovered an installation of the surface of the moon! It seems to be semi-sunken warehouses of some sort."

The Fighter Controller had barely spoken.

Pellaeon apparently thought of the same as Piett did when he heard those words. "Are they powered?"

The Tracking Officer checked with his section for a moment before turning to the Captain. "Barely detectable at this range. If we hadn't known the location..."

It was unclear how much Pellaeon was wont to blame people for things that were not their fault, so the Tracking Officer left the 'we would have missed it' unsaid in a way that still made everyone in earshot hear it.

Wanting to not appear too friendly with his officers, Pellaeon ignored it and instead tried to concentrate on the bigger picture.

"Any targeting systems?"

"None that they can see, Sir."

Pellaeon raised his eyebrows. "That doesn't mean much." he said with a wry, almost imperceptible grin. "It certainly didn't mean much when we moved close to the asteroid field."

He paused and looked over at his Executive Officer. Piett, sensing what his Captain wanted, nodded silently.

"Fighter Controller, launch the air support for the ground team. Have our fighters blockade the moon until the camp is secured, but they are to maintain a safe distance." No need taking unneeded chances in case someone had stored the torpedoes on the moon and had the entire installation on a dead man's switch. All they could do now was wait and hope the dice fell their way.

Two hours, a fierce, but futile stand by the pirates and a bloodless assault on the moonbase later, Piett found himself standing in one of the semi-sunken warehouses on the moon. As he had suspected, the torpedoes were stored in prefabricated warehouses that could have come from a hundred worlds in this sector alone and that had been partially covered with moon soil so as to make visual observation more difficult. The work that had gone into this and the base on the planet where the Pirates had landed a freighter and even constructed another few prefabs around it spoke of a more long-term plan. This wasn't just the usual hit and run robbers gang that was becoming so endemic on the Outer Rim together, but something altogether more permanent. Even though the attack on the base had yielded no evidence to that effect, all this made him think that a connection to the Rebels was more probable than not. The issue was that the computers that had been captured had revealed exactly nothing, and without anything to go on, this was where this investigation ended.

Of course Intelligence and the ISB would be looking into this, but he would be very surprised if anything really came of it. If the intent really had been to sell the entire lot to the Rebels instead of in small batches on the 'normal' black market, then the meeting had to have been somewhere else as neither side would risk the other backstabbing them, say what you wanted about the Rebels, they had enough in the way of smart people among them, and so far it seemed that neither the computers in the camp nor any of the pathetic prisoners they'd taken had known where that was. True, the pirates might be lying, but they knew Navy standard policy when it came to pirates and that their best chance for that to change from them being thrown out the nearest airlock back to a life on a prison colony was to tell the truth when being asked something.

Pellaeon would leave some sort of sentry behind when jumping out, but the chance that the Rebels, if they were indeed involved, would stick around long enough to allow for more than confirmation of their involvement, if that. So yes, they had accomplished the letter of the orders the old Captain had been given, but the spirit behind them, finding and crushing the Rebels... that task remained undone. A task he swore to complete.

 **tbc**


	4. Chapter 4

**This chapter is specially dedicated to Carrie Fisher. She is now one with the Force.**

 **Chapter 4**

"Of course, milady, but if I may ask a question?"

Paqua impatiently waved her hand in the classic 'go on' gesture.

Trun on the other hand took a deep breath, prayed to whatever gods that might be listening and asked a question that had been bugging him since the Emperor's second-in-command had explained their orders.

"With all due respect, milady, but why are doing this? That sort of thing could easily be handled by local authorities."

The Dark Lady of the Sith only raised an eyebrow in response at the question. Trun knew that he wasn't exactly skirting the line since it was a perfectly legitimate question and one that the Director had probably wanted to ask himself, though it was probably more forward than what she was used to. Something about moving in the highest circles of the Empire gave one a sense of how far you could go, and Paqua usually was very down-to-the-matter-at-hand in things like this.

Paqua turned to the massive floor to ceiling window that showed the swirl of hyperspace racing by.

"The Emperor believes, and I happen to agree, that the Naberrie family has some connection to the rebels, and since you have shown great aptitude at weeding those out, Director Isard suggested you when he was to send someone to assist me on this mission."

Trun chose to not mention the fact that years of digging had revealed nothing. The closest thing had been that Bail Organa, a friend and colleague of the fugitive Senator Amidala had once dropped by when he had been on the planet for unrelated reasons to pay his respects, back before the Galaxy had learned that she was still alive. There had been some talk about the Senator being part of the Rebels' network on Coruscant, but nothing had been unearthed on that front either. Organa was either very, very good at keeping his head down and act the loyal Imperial Senator or there really was nothing there.

At any rate..

"I see. But with all due respect, there is the chance that we... spook them, or that there is nothing there to find."

Even though he had indirectly doubted the wisdom of the Emperor, he was not instantly chucked out the nearest airlock. Instead Paqua looked at him.

"If it is the former then you will have to move fast." she said, making clear where the blame would fall if that happened. Still, Trun appreciated that she didn't use it as her default strategy. Having the quarry bolt made them go for emergency plans that were a lot harder to pull off successfully, especially when you were a largeish group of people like this, were incredibly risky on both ends, and as someone who prided himself in his work, he also hated the by definition rushed nature of something like this. True, there wasn't always a choice, but he tried to avoid those occasions whenever he could.

"As for the latter..." she continued, "there is a connection. The Emperor has sensed it."

And that was that. Force Powers were something best not to be argued with if you wanted to get ahead in the upper hierarchy of the Empire. He wasn't quite so sure that Palpatine was right, but he knew better than to say that out lout at this point. But then again, some sort of clandestine connection between the Naberries and their daughter almost had to exist. Padmé Skywalker was far too much of a family person for that. Even with her being the enemy, that was one character trait of the second most famous Rebel that he fully understood.

Thing was, he had tried to trace it before. Other than the arrest and eventual execution of some trader for unrelated charges that had accomplished exactly nothing.

"They have almost outlived their usefulness then."

Part of him didn't like how bloodthirsty that sounded.

"They have. Their daughter and her husband are symbols for the Rebellion and what better way is there to send a message?"

"A valid point, Milady."

"I am glad you agree." she said drily and with only a hint of sarcasm and force. "But to get back to the matter at hand, they need to be... subtly encouraged, Agent."

Trun frowned. "With all due respect, I'm not sure that can be done to the desired effect in the time period specified in those orders. Manipulating someone like that is a fairly involved process after all. Yes, there has been some pressure brought to bear on them, just to make it clear that we are interested, but this is a difficult escalation."

Before Paqua could reply, Trun shook his head with a frown.

"Oh it can be done milady, and I will do it. What worries me is the optics. If we are to do this without being noticed, as the Emperor commands, by Nubian society at large or even the rest of the population of Theed, we need might need more time is what I mean."

"A valid point," the Dark Lady of the Sith conceded, "but do not concern yourself with that."

Trun raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing.

"The Emperor has no worries about the reaction of the populace of Naboo." she paused and looked at Trun, "But you are referring to the Core Worlds?"

"In a way. I doubt that this story would travel very far in the press, if at all, considering that our news control is going to be fairly complete and the Naberrie family has next to no public presence at the moment, but a version that is skewed in the retelling is eventually going to make the rounds and increase sympathies for the Rebellion among those who are predisposed towards that sort of thing. Now I know that this could also be used to identify those elements before they become a real problem, but are we willing to risk being caught unaware? And a short-term, brute-force approach makes it next to impossible to control the narrative that leaks out."

"So you are willing and able to carry out the Emperor's orders but would prefer not to?"

He could sense where this line would lead and counter-steered.

"Not at all. As an officer of both the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Intelligence Services it is my first duty to obey my orders without question," he said, paraphrasing the basic credo hammered into every academy recruit, "I merely saying that a quick approach to a simple task might yield results not entirely to the Emperor's liking. By definition measures of dissolution work slowly. The orders are to make them seek out the Rebels in such a way that they are unaware they are being traced, and doing that is not going to be easy if it is to be done "

"Leave it to him to decide what he likes or not. Your concern however is noted, as is your desire to secure the best possible outcome for the Empire."

She even smiled at him.

"However, the orders stand."

"Yes, milady."

* * *

"They did _what_?"

Darred stopped pacing and repeated himself. "They fired me, on the grounds that my family name has been costing them several contracts, chiefly the one for the new complex of the Borleian trade mission."

His wife seemed close to exploding with anger, so he stopped pacing and turned towards her. "Sola, sweetheart, for what it's worth, Janun did it very much against his will and pretty much because he was effectively told to do it by his own bosses."

"But WHY?"

He was tempted to reply that it had something to do with the recent activities of her darling sister, but however true that might be, it wasn't something that his wife needed to hear right now. They had been over all this when the Empire had started tightening the pressure seals a few years ago, and many a time since then. He didn't blame Padmé as such, given that the Empire was quite literally out to get them, but he wished that somehow, in some way she had been more circumspect. Dropping any sort of familial connection back to Naboo fooled exactly no one and certainly not Imperial authorities. And even if it had, it wouldn't have stopped them. Their last name marked them as enemies of the Empire.

And their actual, carefully hidden feelings were another matter entirely. Completely withdrawing from public life had been amazingly easy, given that the only member of the family who had sought public service was on the run from the Empire, but when the Rebels had started getting noticed by the Galaxy at large, that hadn't helped them any more.

Everything had escalated far more quickly than he had expected, and now... now...

"Dee?"

"Yes?"

"What are we going to do?"

That was a very good point. She knew that they had enough in the way of funds stashed away to last them a while if they were careful, but it wouldn't go on forever.

She sighed when he didn't give an answer. Nor did she manage to give one, as at this time someone banged on the door. She knew that the girls were in the back garden, so with trepidation she went to the door and pressed the button that opened them.

Outside was a young trooper from the Theed Police Force, along with three men wearing Imperial uniforms.

That moment destroyed their lives forever.

"Sola Naberrie? We have some questions to ask you. Come with us please."

 **tbc**

 **Yes, we will soon get back to the actual main characters of this thing. It's just we're starting to reach the point where so much stuff is going on at once... It'll be worse once we reach what would be the OT-era, because we also have a lot more characters that need to be looked at before all coming together for the giant brawl at the end. (Why yes, I have been watching some vintage Godzilla recently.)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

 _'So the Republic mission into Chiss space came at a pivotal point in galactic history, both because of events in the core worlds and elsewhere. Had the timing of events been slightly different, it is very likely that our history would have been very different indeed. As it was, the mission laid the foundation of the current astropolitical situation in what was then known as the Unknown Regions. It strove to give the Republic at least a modicum of security in that all they wanted some sort of agreement with the Chiss, but oddly enough the impact events had would not become apparent for decade._

Professor Tycho Deran, lecturing on Galactic History at the University of Alderaan, 163 AJE

* * *

The Capital of the Chiss Ascendancy stretched for miles under surface of the planet, and given that the entire world was covered in ice and glaciers almost as blue as the inhabitants it would have amazed any off-world onlooker that the Chiss had managed to create the society that they lived in. Sev'eere'nuruodo, formerly Aristocra of her house and the Chiss equivalent to the Galactic Empire's Minister of Diplomatic Affairs, loved the city and loved her species. What she hated however was said Galactic Empire. Not only because she hated having fallen for Palpatine's manipulations, but also because it had made her act in a way that she found deplorable and dishonourable on a personal level. Her successor to all her posts was her younger brother, Mritthi'nasa'nuruodo, more of a General than a diplomat at heart, so in spite of having no official position any more, she was considered one of his closest advisers to the point that some considered her the true leader of her family.

Why he had called her in near the end of the day cycle however was a matter that was something...

"The probe was recovered by one of our patrols four days ago, and they have communicated the contents to us. It contained only an ordinary, other than the Republic sigil entirely unremarkable one-shot holoprojector. When they examined it, it played a message."

"Do you have it?" she asked.

"Of course." her brother grinned and pulled out a small device. "We transferred it to one of our projectors."

The holographic image that appeared when her brother pressed the button. It showed the person that was rated as on the top of that list, together with her husband. Vereen noted her expanded mid-section. Interesting.

 _"Greetings from the Galactic Republic. I am Senator-in-exile Padmé Skywalker and I represent the Republic Executive Council. As you are undoubtedly aware, the Republic has sought refuge from the Galactic Empire in the Unknown Regions. We have no intention to encroach on any territories claimed by the Chiss Ascendancy, and now seek to enter into an agreement of non-intervention and non-aggression with your government."_

The holographic woman paused.

 _"We have not sought you out before because of our own ignorance and position and would gladly rectify that error now. If you wish to answer to this message, then please respond via hyper-pulse along the same vector this drone approached your space, and if you so desire, I will personally meet with you."_

The message ended.

"That was certainly interesting." Inasan said after a while.

"In what way?" his sister asked, as much to test his skills as out of any interest.

"For one, she and Skywalker aren't having some sort of salacious affair, however much the Empire wants some circles to think that. From what our file on her says she's not the type to adopt the name without cause and without having some sort of claim to it. For two, this isn't the sort of gun-running, mind-raping and generally blowing up public transport sort of group that a lot of the Rebels are."

"What makes you say that? Plenty of groups claim to be a continuation of the Republic."

"True, but her group set that precedent."

The Ascendancy had only limited information on the exact nature and structure of the Rebel networks in the core, but it was well known among everyone with an interest in such things that the group the Jedi belonged to or likely led, had been the first to claim direct descent from the Republic.

"And, dear Sister," Inasan continued, "they see themselves as a direct continuation of the Republic, not recognizing the Empire as a legitimate government. It's a political fiction of course, given the facts out in the field, but it does give them the sort of legitimacy that some seditious elements will need, and practising actual diplomacy by all the rules the core worlds hold so dear... or rather, held so dear during the Old Republic adds to that, both in their own eyes and in those of everyone else they may have to deal with."

"But how does that tell you that they are to be taken at their word, that they are honest? Doesn't this just assume that we recognize their status as a state, even if only one in exile?"

"Aside from a gut feeling? Well, Senator Ami... Skywalker has, or rather, had a reputation that she could be taken at her word, and the Jedi like to believe that they are the same. How true that is... well, Sister dear, you are the one with the most experience, but they certainly aren't the sort of back-stabbing cheats as the Seperatists were or as the Hutts are. True, if pressed they will consider their own interests first, but it's a long shot from having to keep a hand on your blaster and the other on your wallet when you deal with the slugs."

He grinned. "Speaking of which, it's in their own best interest to be brutally honest in any potential dealings with us. Consider, even the best-case estimate is that they have that one Star Destroyer and a few odds and ends they managed to scrape together. Supposed they cheat us in some fashion, and we decide to send the fleet instead of just telling the Empire where they are? They have to know that either way they'd be crushed like a small insect. And look at it from their perspective, they know where we our borders are, roughly, and want to cover their backs. They have no interest in any sort of conflict with us, nor would they want to seriously expand if they could. Their focus is on the core."

"Very well considered, brother." Vereen said with a nod. "There's something else to consider."

"What?"

She chuckled. "Men. Haven't you seen that she's at least four or five months pregnant? Going by the timestamp the message was recorded a core-standard week ago. Suppose you had been lucky and born as a female, would you risk your unborn child that way unless you were completely certain that you could get back out?"

"Especially if it's true that she has at least another already."

Nothing more was said as each of the siblings considered the possible implications.

"We're neutral." Vereen said after a while. "So why should we entertain _either_ offer?"

"I..." he was trying to find a way to say what he had to without getting slugged for his effort. "I know that you're not fond of the Empire."

She snorted. "That's an understatement."

"What I mean is that you have to remember that not only would reaching an agreement with one of them preclude us from one with the other but also what the Empire can potentially bring to the negotiations... the Far Outsiders..."

"Can be dealt with by us without Imperial help!"

"Are you certain? This is not something we have dealt with before. Their... base alone..."

"Still doesn't change the basic issue!" Vereen exclaimed and slammed her fist against a nearby wall.

"So what would this so-called Republic offer us? Not to be sneezed at by that same insect?"

"Haven't you been listening to me? If, and only if, we were to reach an agreement with the Republic it would be in their own best interests if we were as strong as we can be. Can you say the same thing about the Empire? Suppose we concluded a full Alliance with them or even only allowed them to station forces in or near our space, what's to stop them to decide at some point that the agreement has outlived it's usefulness, without telling us first?"

"And on the other hand even the most selfish self-interest would make them keep to letter and spirit of anything we agree with them."

"Exactly!" Vereen exclaimed again. She stepped up to him, and he retreated, raising both his hands in mock surrender.

"You know that this isn't my choice. If it was me, then neither would be getting a hearing. We have too many issues of our own to be drawn into a core conflict."

"You know that, I know that and because we do, our family knows that. But what about the other Ruling Families? What about the cabinet? In the end we are two among many."

"True..."

"So what are you going to recommend?"

"I don't know. The meeting isn't for another two days, so we have some time to decide."

Vereen understood that both of them considered the matter closed for the moment and instead she took up the other matter they had met to talk about.

"Well, he's having enough friends still, especially because the Galactic Civil War looks like it's going to spread into the Unknown Regions."

"Exile is exile." her brother declared. "He is not going to be taken off that planet unless I can help it."

"But you know that there are rumours that he met with Palpatine at some point. The Imperials might demand his release as a condition."

"If that happens, I'll go shoot him myself."

"Watch out though. For some of his... fans he is a hair's width away from a religious figure."

 **tbc**

Chiss naming conventions are very confusing. To keep me from tearing my own hair out, I will use their core names in the non-speech parts of the text, among themselves they will use their full ones or abbreviations.

And yes, the next chapter will bring us to the main characters. We are reaching a point where things are starting to stretch out, but Episode V will have a lot more of that, given the things I have to set up and prepare the ground for...

Also, I think I have finally settled on what the Council would call itself. Consider this the final version.

Shorter than usual, sorry.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

 _'Looking back at how the Skywalker family and their Solo offshoot slash other half operate, it shouldn't surprise any of you that Anakin Skywalker would insist just as much on personally escorting his wife as she did on going there in the first place. Carrying as she was her third child, the worries expressed by her husband are even more understandable. At the same time her participation would turn out to be critical._

 _On the Imperial side, well, in the unlikely case any of you have paid attention during last month's lecture you should know the names involved._

 _Neither side could be aware that the events would have a massive impact on the galaxy decades later.'_

 _Professor Tycho Deran, lecturing on Galactic History at the University of Alderaan, 163 AJE_

"Do you still think it's cold in hyperspace?"

Anakin looked away from the viewport and down at his wife, nestled against him as she was, her head resting on his chest.

"Sitting here like this? No." he said. And it was true. Even then it hadn't really been about warmth, though he'd only understood that years and years later. That day on the Naboo cruiser racing away from the Force-forsaken sandpit that was Tatooine, it had been about being lonely and the unknown. The former he was no longer, and the latter he could and would face with his family and friends at his side. It still occasionally struck him as odd and amazing that he could openly be with his wife and children, even after all this time.

He shook the unusually philosophical thought aside and kissed the top of Padmé's head. "I love you, Angel."

"I know." she replied, placing a hand over where their child was kicking. "I didn't mean it like that though. I'm not a Force user, but it's obvious."

She nestled just that tiny bit tighter towards him. Companionable silence ensued as both Skywalkers watched the lights of hyperspace fly by.

Until a knock on the hatch of their cabin broke the moment. Anakin glanced at his chrono and saw that seven hours had passed since the last navigation check, so they had to be close to the point where they were to meet the Chiss. He reached out in the Force.

"You okay with Obi-Wan coming in?"

"Of course."

She sat up on the couch and re-arranged herself to be a bit more presentable than her current 'bed-hair' while Anakin got up to unlock the hatch. Obi-Wan never stepped inside, instead he just stuck his head through the hatch.

"We're about to drop out of hyperspace, and Captain Taraan requested your presence on the bridge."

The Alderaani held command of the ship and the two platoons of the Republic Army's finest until they were deployed somewhere, so it was best to do so now. Even though the fleet was minuscule compared to what it had been before the disbandment and what the Emperor could field, it nevertheless held it's traditions very dear. All too many of the sentients that crewed the ships had lost much, so held on tight to whatever was left. The Jedi could relate.

"We'll be right up."

Up on the bridge Taraan was stalking back and forth the port and starboard viewports. "General, Senator." he said and nodded respectfully.

As the ship dropped out of lightspeed it was greeted by... nothing at all. Not that this was unexpected, as this had been a part of the arrangements. Expecting a species as reclusive as the Chiss to be as open about diplomacy and meeting foreigners as most of the core species were, or at least had been before the Empire. But no one minded.

"So we wait." Anakin sighed and stepped over to where one of the sensor consoles was currently not occupied. The space surrounding them was as amazingly empty as it felt in the Force, but that didn't preclude some pre-positioned sensor pod from communicating the presence of a Republic ship back to it's Chiss masters. Arranging this meet had been difficult enough given that there was no direct communications channel, but eventually this approach had been agreed upon, though it hat been a pre-condition for any meeting put forward by the Chiss response to Padmé's initial message, and accepted by the Republic response to that. What had caused quite a stir was that the Chiss had also remarked on the presence of an Imperial delegation with the same goal, securing an agreement with the Ascendancy. That more than anything had made it imperative that the Republic's best diplomat was there in person.

And they waited for three hours. When the Chiss finally appeared it was by way of a cruiser-sized vessel and three frigates about the size of the _Another Chance_. As soon as they had dropped out of hyperspace the largest Chiss ship launched a shuttle. No direct communication was attempted until the shuttle was about to enter a range at which a turbolaser could hope to land a hit.

"They're using the Galactic Universal Ermergency Channel, Captain." the officer at the communications console reported, "They request permission to dock and deliver a liaison officer."

Taraan nodded to indicate his permission for the shuttle to dock.

Meanwhile Padmé rose from where she had been sitting on an empty seat next to the hatch for the last twenty minutes with a slight huff. "That's my call then."

She and Captain Taraan disappeared through the hatch, leaving Anakin and Obi-Wan behind. Both studied the Chiss ships through the forward viewports. They all had a certain look about them that would appeal to Kuat designers, but they had a certain way about them that appealed to the two Jedi, reminding them of times from before the war. Five years ago Obi-Wan would have reminded Anakin not to be worried, that his wife was perfectly safe, but his erstwhile Padawan was more worried about his own actions. He worried about not having put his foot down when Padmé had insisted on coming, but instead about his younger daughter, though Anakin wasn't yet aware of this part.

The older Jedi also knew that there was no other way but returning to Weitun to make him let go of his worries. What made this different from the last time Padmé had been pregnant was that Anakin didn't let these worries rule him. Even though he hated thinking about it Obi-Wan couldn't help but compare this much more grown up and, well, adult Anakin before him now to that dark, twisted future that his old Master had told him about. Qui-Gon had been spare about the details, but nothing could be further from the incarnation of evil Anakin would have been. No, instead he was a man who doted on his family like any normal father would but at the same time was enough of a Jedi to know that sometimes risks had to be taken and sacrifices to be made. It amazed him still that Anakin kept refusing a seat on the council, claiming that he didn't feel worthy of such a seat even though he was just that, much more so than he had been back when he had almost demanded it. As a compromise Obi-Wan had resolved to approach the council about Anakin being more fully recognized as a Jedi Master without the seat, something that was more than deserved.

"I don't sense any deception." Anakin said, pulling Obi-Wan back into the here and now. Anakin was probably referring to the Chiss envoy now on his way to the bridge. "Their envoy at least seems to be genuine in his intentions."

"We know little about the Chiss, so that's something at least."

The Captain stepped through the hatch first, followed by a tall figure in a dark blue and gold uniform, with a face that was handsome in spite of the blue skin and the piercing red eyes. He looked around the bridge as if the bridge crew, studiously focused on their task and displaying the picture of professionalism without being ordered to do so, wasn't what he had expected. Anakin chanced a quick glance at his wife as she stepped through the hatch, and Obi-Wan could almost hear the silent exchange.

"Captain Reen, these are Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, representing the Jedi Order on our mission."

The Chiss considered this before turning back to Padmé. "Who speaks for your people? The Jedi or the Republic?"

"The Jedi Orders serves the Republic, as we all do."

He seemed to accept that, and it seemed that Padmé, ever the diplomat, had already established herself as the leader of their group. Which was entirely accurate but probably not something anyone unfamiliar with the Old Republic or the new one. Force, even [I]inside[/I] the Republic there had been little, if any knowledge about the Jedi Order beyond rumours and tall tales.

"Very well. Be informed, the Imperial delegation is already in transit and will arrive about the same time we do. The Chiss Defence Forces will guarantee the peace between both your delegations, enforced in an equal measure against the both of you. We will not tolerate any violence."

"Understood." Padmé continued and nodded. She unconsciously placed a hand on her very much expanded mid-section, obviously thinking about the potential dangers to her children.

Taraan stepped aside and pointed out the navigation console. "Captain, if you would be so kind and set in the course?"

Reen stepped over to the rating sitting at the console and barked out a course. The young woman worriedly glanced at her own Captain who nodded. She typed the course into the computer and waited for further instructions.

"Once we reach the system, we will be met by a further escort force. If your ship is capable of landing on a planet, you will be escorted to a suitable landing pad, if not, the same will be provided for any shuttle you dispatch. You will not deviate from this course, you will not exceed the speed set for it and you will not attempt any HyperNet communications."

"Of course. How long will the transit take?" Taraan asked.

"About two days."

The various leaders of the Republic delegation exchanged a few looks before Padmé shrugged and nodded.

"Then allow me to send a message to our base to inform them that we have met up with you. They are expecting us."

Reen allowed himself a thin but still genuine smile. "Of course, Captain."

Obi-Wan knew that they had just passed the first test. He wasn't quite sure if it had been their acceptance of the terms without protest, the evident leadership by the good Senator-in-exile or anything inbetween, but it seemed that there was more to this Chiss Captain than met the eye. To him it seemed as if the man almost transformed in front of his eyes. Not that it went all that far, but he turned from an ice-planet into someone merely having a climate similar to Weitun's northern regions.

This was confirmed as the _Another Chance_ took up her place in the middle of the Chiss formation and began her trip ever deeper into the unknown regions.

 **tbc**

 **To anyone I haven't replied to:So, so sorry. RL hasn't been kind to my activities...**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Piett stood the usual step and a half behind and to the left of his captain as they watched the shuttle carrying the Rebel delegation approach the Chiss dreadnought that was to be used for what would probably be the entire stay of all the off-worlders in the system. Their hosts had taken great pains to ensure that both sides of the Galactic Civil War only met under highly controlled circumstances.

Both ships were parked on opposite sides of the planets, with their orbits regulated so that they would never have line of sight with one another and both were also surrounded by an appropriate group of Chiss warships. The [I]Chimaera[/I] had gotten a good look at them though as they had dropped out of lightspeed. The distance had been immense and in fact at the very edge of the range at which the on-board systems could provide a decent picture, but it had been good enough to identify the ship, by shape alone since it clearly was not a Victory-Class Star Destroyer. Why the Rebels had chosen not to send their flagship for something as potentially important as this led to much speculation among the officers viewing the footage, but in Piett's opinion it was probably either because they didn't want to risk their strongest ship far from home on a mission that for them had to have every chance to turn deadly or because they were going for an understated, restrained and low-level approach.

That notion went right out the window when the shuttle settled and the access ramp lowered itself. He didn't see it as a good sign that the Chiss had provided something of an honour guard for the Rebels, but there was little they could do as when Captain Pellaeon and himself had disembarked the same had happened for them. Tegan Kaylak, diplomatic representative of the Emperor on this mission and apparently hand-picked by someone very high up the ladder, had taken it as a matter of course and was now souring visibly at the Rebels being given this same honour.

Yet it was him who first spoke when they could see who the Republic had sent.

"So much for low-level, Captain."

"Well, it was a probably choice, Ambassador, not the only one they could make."

Piett tended to agree. The faces of the people leading the other Rebels as they approached the 'protocol officer' the Chiss had provided were recognizable by anyone who served both in the Navy and was in possession of a set of functional eyes, the wanted posters were everywhere.

Skywalker was wearing his hair shorter these days and he stood back near the shuttle with the only other Jedi whom Piett thought to be Obi-Wan Kenobi. He studied both Jedi as far as he could at a distance as the diplomats did their work. Even though he was too junior to have seen action during the war, he was realist enough to know that at the very least three quarters of what Imperial officialdom said about the Jedi was flawed at the very least, and he knew that his Clone Wars veteran comrades had at the very least a professional respect for the Jedi. Between all this he was actually looking forward to forming a picture of his own.

The former Senator of Naboo was equally interesting. Not only was she visibly pregnant, but as hard to hear as it was at this distance, she insisted on being addressed as 'Senator Skywalker' told him many things.

As it did to the others.

Captain Pellaeon looked at the others. "Well that was interesting, wasn't it, Commander?"

Knowing that the Captain saw this as a part of his continuing education, the young for his rank Piett replied quickly. "Indeed, Sir. It seems that we really are dealing with a different Jedi Order now."

"Andy why is that?"

"Back on the days of the Old Republic the Jedi weren't allowed to.,. have families. She openly calls herself a Skywalker, so she isn't having a secret marriage like something from a bad romance novel."

Piett smiled thinly before continuing. "We know that she has at least one other child with Skywalker, but this is the first confirmation we really have, before all of it were mere rumours. What's more, for all we know this is the first time she's been seen by anyone from our side since the Pacification of Coruscant, so this could be seen as a message as much to us as her presence is meant to send one to the Chiss."

The Ambassador glanced at Piett before apparently deciding to be candid. "Indeed it is. You know as well as I do that the press has insinuation down to an art form."

Without waiting for Piett to indicate if he had understood what had been left unsaid, he continued. "Our dear former Senator Ami... Skywalker more like, has in the past been a very public figure, one impersonating the so-called values and virtues of the Old Republic."

It took Kaylak a moment to decide how far he could go with these two men. In the end he apparently decided to risk it. Piett had no intentions of revealing anything that was said today, mostly because he knew that whatever various people said, perfection was a goal to be striven for that yet could never be reached, and if he'd been a betting man, he would have gladly risked a hefty number of credits on the Captain having a very similar point of view.

"What I mean is that being who she was... or rather who she is, she was and in some ways still is a figure to be looked up to and aspired to among certain upper-class and predominantly female sections of human and to an extent non-human society. So why do you think the rumours about her quote-unquote emotional status started out right after that? Because they knew it would undermine and help destroy her image legacy among those self-same admirers, above all those younger girls who aspired to be like her, especially after how her supposed death was spun for the press. Imagine, for years you're told that your great idol died during the pacification of Coruscant, but all of a sudden you see newsreports, read articles and see pictures that prove beyond a doubt that she has sided with the Rebellion, that she gone so far as to... settle down with one of those Jedi that tried to assassinate the Emperor and having a child with him, in defiance of their own rules? All that making it clear that she wasn't unwillingly co-opted in some way? You'd have to go fairly far down the ladder of quality to find a so-called publication that actually said out lout what everybody meant to be sure, but that didn't make it any less damaging. Maker, those glossy high-class rags probably even made it worse by the way they didn't out and out say what they wanted everybody to read between the lines. The whole so-called scandal was a concerted and very effective effort to destroy her personal legacy as well as her political one."

"But what can she hope to salvage by announcing that she is properly married? Effectively we are her entire audience?"

"I never knew her personally," the Ambassador replied, "but from what I am told, it's the principle of the thing, and she would defend her family like a mama-hawkbat."

Piett knew better than to ask how Kaylak knew that and decided that it wasn't worth knowing anyway. He had his own career to protect after all. At any rate, by this time the evening's entertainment was over as the Rebels were led to the quarters they were going to occupy.

* * *

"Well, that was interesting, wasn't it?"

The meetings were not supposed to begin until the next day. Why there was a delay or why the Chiss insisted on officially talking to both delegations at the same. Maybe to underscore their neutrality towards both sides? Maybe because they had something to say they wanted both sides to hear? With an internal shrug Piett stepped away.

"I can't say I am surprised that they keep us on this station, given what we knew about the Chiss." Obi Wan opined as the Republic delegation assembled in the small kitchenslashliving room area of the suite of quarters they had been assigned. Expectedly spartan on a space station, it still provided a table large enough to afford everyone a seat. He watched Anakin help a somewhat indignant Padmé into one of the comfortable chairs.

"Which is little enough." Padmé said. Shegave her husband a short, thankfull smile before turning back towards the table, one hand resting on her stomach. "The HoloNet is impressively bare, I have to say. Usually there'd at least be rumours, but it seems that the publicly accessible databanks are [I]impressively[/I] bare."

Anakin couldn't help but speculate. "Palpatine might have his reasons to keep the Chiss out of the limelight."

"But why? It's not as if they involve themselves in our part of the Galaxy at all. If the Empire is courting the Chiss as potential allies... maybe because they 'merely' near-human? That the general public isn't made even more aware of their hypocrisy?"

"Maybe. But Palpatine isn't the sort of man to do that, to really care."

Of all the persons in the room Padmé knew Palpatine best none of the others could disagree.

"I wish we could have someone look into this. It might give us an edge in the negotiations."

Obi Wan shook his head. "I don't think so. Did you recognize the senior Imperial Officer?"

Anakin shook his head.

"Fair enough." Obi Wan replied, "I know him by his reputation, so it took me a while to put a name to the face. We've never met as such, but I looked at his file once. He's a good bit older now but if I'm not mistaken that was Gilad Pellaeon. If what I heard about him is anything to go by then he's not going to fall for the obvious ploys."

Having heard the same name via his own Padawan and subsequently researched the man, was forced to agree.

"You are correct as always, Obi Wan. Still, why is he here?"

Padmé was the one who supplied the next piece. "Maybe to send a message to the Chiss and to us. To the Chiss that the Imperial Military is an entity that needs to be taken seriously, one way or another, and to us that the Empire can easily crush us either way. They don't want neither us nor the Chiss to forget who is the stronger alternative."

When she saw the worried looks of the Jedi in the room, she waved their concerns away.

"I can make this work." she said with far more conviction in her voice than she felt on the inside.

 **tbc**

 **I still hate Anakin's haircut in Episode III. Could that be any more 90s? Argh. The thing with Padmé's legacy is actually taken from various stories written by the excellent on and a few others, only there that it was applied to Leia, and used with permission. I strongly suggest reading it, though it has some minor adult themes at times, so be warned.**

 **Anyhoo, this was supposed to be a lot longer, but it was an absolute (insert expletive here) to write, so I axed a part of it and posted it as is.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Padmé found herself staring at her Imperial counterpart across a conference table large enough that you could almost play Limmie on it, a sport that had become insanely popular on Weitun lately, with fans that included the former Senator from Naboo and her family.

The Imperial Ambassador was not what the Diplomatic Service seemed to consist of nowadays. She hadn't heard the name Kaylak in that regard before, but given that she had been out of the loop for years now and that the Empire had cleaned house there even more than most of the Senate Bureaucracy, she wasn't surprised. Judging by his age, he'd probably one of the up and coming youngish officials that had hitched their flag to the Empire when it had become clear that there was not going to be a serious attempt to unseat the then-freshly self-declared Emperor. She couldn't fault him for that since she probably would have acted the same had she been in his position. Once more a pang of pain ran through her as her thoughts drifted to her family. It had to have been strong enough for Anakin to feel it. He was sitting next to her and quickly squeezed her lower arm with his fleshhand, taking care to stay under the table. Thankful for this gesture of support, she looked at him and nodded for a second.

As small as the exchange had been, it probably hadn't escaped Kaylak. The man was a consummate professional. When they had first exchanged words across the table, she'd half expected to hear the sort of stock rhetoric that most Imperial officials used in any sort of conversation that was connected to the Republic. They had all decided to let the small things slide, so when they had been referred to as the "Alliance Delegation" nothing had happened. The term was a misnomer, as formally there was no alliance and the groups aligned with the Republic were part of the military command structure, but the term had been making the rounds among the population of the settled parts of the Galaxy. All in all, it was probably as far as Kaylak could go without openly recognizing the Republic's legitimacy.

Right at this moment it wasn't the thing they were discussing anyway. The Chiss were at least attempting to play by the rules of the Galactic Core, but something in her made her want to get to the point. They had spent the last four hours since convening in her for the first time earlier this morning doing nothing but trying to convince that both of their groups had a legitimate interest in reaching an agreement with the Ascendancy and that they were sincere in their offers. No details on either had been stated yet, but she had the distinct impression that the Empire was going to ask them a whole lot more than the 'leave us alone and we leave you alone' that was a simplified version of what she was going to offer them. Unless someone discovered a way to break space-time, there was no way that the Republic would ever be able to match the Empire on even terms in anything but the extremely long-term. Part of her saw this as nothing more than a challenge to overcome, yet another part was all too aware that how she overcame this would make or break this mission. Luckily she had the best negotiator the Republic had to offer by her side.

Silence reigned in the room. When the two Chiss functionaries, probably mid-level officials in whatever passed for their diplomatic service, had left the two delegations alone with the exceptions of six stone-faced guards that were obviously there to keep the two groups of outsiders from bringing their war to this station. None of the humans in the room had spoken a single word to each other, on her side at least in part because they had nothing to say to their mortal enemies and in part because the events of the war had already created enough bad blood between the two sides that simple and mundane small-talk was not a possibility. Instead they were content to stare each other down, to say that the situation was awkward was akin to saying that

This persisted until the Chiss representatives returned. They stated that the members of the Government that were tasked with conducting the negotiations would be arriving shortly, but that there would be a slight delay due to unforeseen complications. The didn't go into any more detail than that, but this could conceivably have been anything, and by the way they said this, ît didn't look like there was anything more than that to it.

When she voiced her agreement to waiting some more, her daughter decided that she was hungry. The growl of her stomach was just loud enough for Anakin and Obi Wan to hear, making both of them smile. She never found out if they had heard it or not, but at this moment, the two Chiss officials also announced that they had ordered some refreshments to be brought up while they waited, so minutes later, Padmé was gorging herself on what were little more than basic Chiss staple foods that were compatible with full-human physiology and that had been fancied up for the occasion. Luckily water was the one constant of humanoid life in the galaxy.

It was nothing special, but it appeared that the little one was satisfied for the moment, which was a good thing, because at that moment the door opened and a pair of Chiss walked in. They both cut a fare more impressive figure than the other officials she'd seen so far, wearing what she now knew to be the uniform of the Chiss military. She wasn't sure in how far certain things applied to the Chiss, but there was enough of a resemblance there to tell her that those two had to be fairly closely related. As was wont for at least those Chiss that she'd met so far, they were both of the tall and handsome type, but their skin was of a slightly different shade than the two officials that she'd dealt with so far and that seemed to have disappeared at some point.

Both delegations quickly seated themselves again and then, finally, it began.

The woman spoke first, while the man sat down at the head of the table. "My core-name is Vereen, and this is Inasan. We are here to represent the Chiss Ascendancy towards both your interests. Now, we recognize that both your... groups are at war with another, but there will not by any fighting until you have left our territory, which is extensive. Our fleet will guarantee that." She paused and looked at each of the present humans in turn. "Against anyone. And no matter what we have concluded here." The emphasis was obvious. "I hope you understand that."

Once more she looked all of them in the eyes.

"Of course." Padmé said, likely beating her Imperial counterpart to the punch by mere seconds. "The Galactic Republic follows the rules of Diplomacy."

It was what she had left unsaid, and Kaylak smiled and nodded, not taking the jab personal.

"So does the Galactic Empire. We will of course abide by this as the Ascendancy requests."

"Good." Vereen said with a not and sat down next to Inasan. "We know who all of you are, so there will be no need for introductions. We also know that all of you are interested in reaching some sort of agreement with us. We will meet separately with both your delegations at the same time and you will present us with your requests. After that, we will consider them and give you our first, _initial_ response."

She paused again and showed emotion for the first time since entering the room. "After all, we are merely servants of our Governent and do not have the power to decide something that could influence the future of the Ascendancy in such a way."

The man spoke for the first time. "We wanted to meet with both your groups because we wanted you to know this: Whatever we decide, the Ascendancy intends to fully remain neutral in your conflict. Legitimacy or lack of same is not the matter at hand and will not have any influence on what we decide. We will merely recommend what is best four the Ascendancy, our planet and our people. Nothing else matters to us."

Something about the way he had said that made Padmé sit up and take notice. She made a mental note to ask the either of the Jedi if they'd felt something, but that would have to wait. Was it the intonation of the words that had not been quite right or was it the strange way in which they had glanced at each other for a fraction of a second before the man had spoken? She didn't know, but resolved to remain on her toes for more things like that, not knowing how much that would come to aid them in the near future.

"Now, to more administrative matters. Both your groups will have free reign on this station, with the exceptions of the control centre, the main power plant, sensor and weapons systems and lastly the sections where each other's quarters are located. There will be no exceptions except by invitation and moves of any sort towards the other delegation will mean an immediate expelling of your delegation from Chiss space."

He smiled next, which to Padmé looked positively odd for a species where she hadn't seen anyone really express emotions. The Chiss were near-human, so she was aware that they could show emotions on an intellectual level, but actually see them do so after endless hours of faces that would make the Clone-trainers on Weitun proud it was... well, odd and strange. What happened next, she would remember for the rest of her life. The two Chiss looked at one another and suddenly the Jedi in the room were as if someone had tried to electrocute them. Padmé was looking away, but she was attuned enough to her husband to tell by the way his hand subtly shifted in hers that he had sensed something powerful in the Force. Before she could do anything, the Chiss spoke again.

"But before we will receive your petitions there is something we wish to tell you about. There is the matter of the _Outbound Flight_ and the survivors."

That had certainly thrown the thermal detonator among the herd.

Padmé was only aware of the project through Anakin's small part in it, but it had fascinated her, and she'd done her research on it with the same meticulous care she approached all her projects with. With all the time that had passed since then she'd always assumed that there had been no...

"Wait... survivors?"

She had spoken first of all the non-Chiss in the room, but she could see she'd beaten the Imperial Ambassador by maybe a second or two, closely followed by the Admiral.

The two Chiss looked at one another, clearly anticipating a long day.

* * *

"So what you are telling us is that you had no idea that the mission had transgressed into our territory?"

"We do."

Kaylak spoke up next before anyone of the Republic delegation had the chance to do so. Interrupting like this was proper, but he had to get his side in before the rebels could.

"While I don't doubt that Senator Amidala had no _personal_ knowledge about the _Outbound Flight_ ," he said while managing to imply the exact opposite, "the point stands that the ship did knowingly violate your space, against strictest orders from the highest leadership. All in keeping with the traditions of the Senate."

Too much of the background behind that awful, awful mission was unknown and lost to the Republic delegation, so there wasn't much they could say. Except for one thing.

"For what it's worth, Master C'baoth was not representative of the Jedi Council, not then and certainly not now." Obi Wan interjected, knowing that it wouldn't help much, if at all. "The methods he used certainly were not either."

"At this time we are not here to pass judgement on the mission. As far as the Ascendancy is concerned, you are all at fault. What we wish to do instead is to resolve the matter once and for all."

Yes, there was that.

"The colony was discovered only by accident, and had our... border patrols not stumbled across it, the matter may have gone entirely unmentioned. Everyone else involved has been dealt with."

The finality with which she spoke made it obvious that the fate of those people had probably not been good.

"We considered the matter ended, but the colony's existence is a fact. One we wish to remove once and for all."

To Padmé this explained why the Chiss weren't all that fond of Force users and wished the Republic had a Diplomatic Corps that consisted of more than herself, Obi Wan and a few talented amateurs from among the population that still needed training and experience. She glanced at the two Jedi in the room, and both of them nodded. Time to take a leap.

"Any of the survivors who wish to join the Republic are welcome to do so, Force users or not."

She had chosen those words deliberately as they had boxed the Imps into a corner. If they accepted this statement, it gave her position some credibility and forced Kaylak to acknowledge the Republic as an actual thing, even if one that was in rebellion, and if he insisted that all the survivors be handed over to the Empire, it exposed the shadier side of Palpatine's rule and generally made the Ambassador do something that in her estimation was not something he liked.

Vereen nodded towards her. "Do you object?"

Kaylak shot her a sardonic grin and raised his hands in semi-defeat. "None."

Padmé on the other hand grinned and squeezed Anakin's hand under the table.

Score one for the Republic.

 **tbc**

 **Especially the second half was insanely hard to write for some reason, to the point where I couldn't bring myself to try for weeks.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

 _'Of all the crimes committed by the Empire up until the final spasms of the Galactic Civil War, what happened on Naboo is generally one of the better remembered of this worst kind of atrocities. Most of those incidents were carried out purely out of spite, in reaction to some imagined slight, some angry reaction to a recent defeat. In a way, here it was no different. But of course, as with everything concerning Emperor Palpatine, there was more to it than what can be seen on the face of things.'_

 _Professor Tycho Deran, lecturing on Galactic History at the University of Alderaan, 163 AJE_

* * *

Darth Paqua had always hated the stillness and inaction that came with meditation, and yet she had come to understand that it helped her anger towards whatever task was at hand at that moment, giving her the focus she needed to accomplish the task with minimum nagging from Coruscant.

Only that this time that would not help. If it was up to her, the 501st Legion would go and put those impertinent people up against the next convenient wall, but her Master had judged that politically inconvenient, as satisfying as it may have been. In his words, with the usual thinly veiled sneers about her unwillingness or inability to play the grand political game of the galaxy, it would be better to have the Galaxy not see the Empire to be overly heavy-handed.

While she complied with the order, it certainly didn't help calm her down or be more focused on the task, however much she needed to do so. Trun was taking to the task far more than she had expected, but she had to admit, Isard had chosen well when assigning him to the task. Skilled underlings were a rare resource to begin with, but Trun was something else and had great potential. Something she needed to keep in mind.

Speaking of which... she sensed his presence in front of the hatch... no, massively huge door leading into her meditation chamber before he had managed to press the button to announce his presence. The first time he had done so, she could sense an undercurrent of fear at disturbing her, so she had made sure to know that was to interrupt her at any time of the day if he had information pertinent to their mission. Now it seemed that this was at hand again. Good. The faster she could get very far away from this wretched planet the better. She had come to really, really hate it and everyone living on it.

"It's not looking good, Ma'am." Trun said without any sort of greeting, the Naberrie family is effectively unassailable from a legal standpoint. They have been model citizens of the Empire since the founding. There's not even a speeding ticket."

He remained outwardly calm, but she could sense his frustration. Not because he felt any ill-will towards Amidala's family, but more because he did not like being frustrated in his efforts. Be it by a piece of technology that refused to act the way it was supposed to or events not conforming to his wishes. Typical Intelligence.

"Go on, Agent."

"Well, I will continue to apply pressure." he said with a sigh. He assumed manual-perfect parade rest. "Since it's not like we really [I]have[/I] to follow the law."

"The Emperor has expressed as much during our last conversation." Paqua replied, getting up from her meditation pose. "Along with his displeasure at the continued delays."

"I see, Mylady." he replied. He could sense that the Sith Lady was even angrier than usual, on top of the increasingly bad mood she had displayed when things on the planet had continued to go against her plans. He didn't know if the Emperor really was impatient or if it was his usual way of egging on his subordinates.

He assumed an even more rigid position. Paqua might be seething under the surface, and though she wasn't wont to explode at him, he did not want to take the risk. "Which is why I had the entire family arrested before coming here."

"On what charge?"

"Sedition against the Empire, conspiring to overthrow the Empire, and generally pretty much every sedition statute I could find."

Paqua wasn't sure if she should reward him for anticipating things and taking the initiative or censure him for going against orders. She decided to do neither and instead merely asked where he had taken them. After all, Trun had accomplished more in the last day than in the weeks before.

"They are currently being transported from the holding facility for easier confinement."

"Before eventually releasing them after making sure that we know everything about them and they have no power over their own lives any more. Hopefully this will make them seek the escape we seek."

"How certain are you, Agent?"

Trun shifted his head uncomfortably. "There is no total certainty, but with luck-"

"I do not believe in _luck_ Agent Trun, and neither should you." But neither did she like being lied to. She was getting enough of that from her Master, Paqua was sure about that. The Empire and especially the court on Coruscant were full with sycophants and busybodies that told their superiors what they wanted to hear, not what needed to be said to further the Empire. Her Master, at least in his public personality, was liking that part of galactic rule far too much in her opinion.

"But you are correct in one thing, the only universal certainty is the Force." she said. "Continue to observe and contact me immediately when anything changes."

Trun knew that he was dismissed and walked out of the room, wondering if he liked what he was turning into. He was glad to be out.

* * *

None of the Alliance cell would live long enough to find out what their action would ultimately cause, though most of them wouldn't have managed to fully consider the implications anyway. Later people would say that for whatever their actions had caused, at least they had meant well, though you would find few to agree with that sentiment. Not all of them were Veterans, and maybe if a few more of them had been, they might have considered the possible consequences of what they were about to do. Beyond that however the plan was a good, even brilliant one, except that no one seemed to have thought of the long-term implications.

Ironically, Imperial authorities, by their very desire to avoid an incident such as this one, actually made it possible to begin with. The place where the Naberrie family was being held was not in Theed itself, as Darth Paqua considered it a hotbed for anti-imperial sentiment, accurately so, but her hands were tied. She was unable to directly move against the Queen or the Government of Naboo. Not because of any lingering loyalties her Master may have had to his homeworld, but rather because the Queen was very popular on her world and in the Senate, more so than the Senator who represented her there. That and the need to keep up the pretence that all the major human-settled world supported the Empire kept Paqua from doing what she wanted to do. Just like Trun and the Emperor she had her doubts about the loyalties of almost all of them, with maybe the exception of Bastion, but as long as they did not act openly her Master was willing to let them be for the moment.

Because of all of this, the family was held in a small provincial town that had one great advantage, a landing field large and isolated enough to take two Lambda-Class shuttles at the same time. One to take the prisoners themselves and one to carry the guards to guard against just the type of rescue attempt that would happen.

However, since the place was deep within the human-dominated areas of the planet and far from the next Gungan settlement, the Imperial security forces surrounding the landing field let their guard down just that tiny bit. There were the usual roving patrols both by stormtroopers and droids, the sentries standing still around the perimeter of the field and around the building where the prisoners were held and the scopes constantly sweeping the area, but there was no restriction against employees of the small spaceport moving around freely, coming and going as they pleased as long as they carried and showed proper identification when challenged to do so. The officer in command of the Stormtrooper contingent disliked this, but there was little he could do beyond declaring the only hardened shelter off-limits as that was where the prisoners were held. Beyond that the normal operations were kept up as much as possible, as the landing field sat atop the only station of the trans-continental maglev subway in the province. It was through that avenue of access that the group penetrated the perimeter. Even though they had superbly forged papers, the workforce was fairly small and the controls at the entrances had been stricter than anticipated. Their planned exit route went through it anyway via the slicing skills of one of their members and a sympathetic service vehicle. Luckily for them, there was a short maintenance side-track where the presence of such a vehicle, along with a perfectly legitimate- _looking_ work order for maintenance on the station later that night would not be out of the ordinary.

Two of them remained behind to guard the vehicle, while the rest of them, armed with war-surplus E-5 carbines hidden somewhat poorly on their persons, headed upstairs. The Imperials had managed to shut off access to and from the maglev station so the two sentries guarding the only entrance were the first to die. One of them, a trooper who had taken off his helmet to fix a small fault with his helmet HUD had his throat slit, while the second Stormtrooper was shot by another veteran who approached him from behind, pressed his carbine into one of the weak points of his armour and pulled the trigger without hesitation. The blast was suppressed by the body, as intended and so the rebels managed to infiltrate deeper.

The shelter that was specially guarded and therefore had to be their target was straight across the field from the place where they emerged to the surface and there was no way to get across undetected short of teleportation. In yet another stroke of luck, power lines and other utilities ran underneath the field in a narrow, low tunnel. A tunnel just barely high enough to let an average-sized human being through without issue. More than one of them felt like a pre-packed dinner, but it took them only minutes to get through, past the Imperial security measures. A single sentry in the maintenance and service mini-cellar managed to raise the alarm before he was killed, and within seconds every alarm within comm range went off. Trun was notified of it within less than two minutes.

When he ran up the access hatch of a shuttle, the cell had already secured the shelter and their slicer was fighting a delaying action with the Imperial systems for control of the doors. When the shuttle left the hangar of the _Iron Fist_ with twice the regulation speed, the door of the compartment where the Naberrie family was held was broken open. When the shuttle entered the atmosphere, the former prisoners were pushed into the tunnel more or less willingly. By the time Trun jumped off the shuttle before the ramp was fully down, his former prisoners were already several kilometres away. And by the time he had the commander of the detachment arrested for dismissing his orders and lax on security, the now empty maintenance vehicle set off again, to be found in a storage shed on the other side of the planet six days later.

By the time Trun's immediate order to cancel all traffic in and out of the system was obeyed and properly enforced by the _Iron Fist_ and her fighters, a Corellian-made light freighter with several unregistered passengers had just barely managed to get away.  
However, when that ship dropped out of hyperspace on the first dog-leg of it's winding course to a pre-arranged destination, the consequences for what had happened began to emerge.

 **tbc**

 **This one was once again a b*tch to write, and to be honest, I rushed it out the door in this state just to be done with it. Not happy with it, but I was stepping around the setup for later events for long enough. The rescue was originally supposed to be a full chapter of it's own, but alas, whatever I tried to sketch out/write looked too much like a re-hash of either Cellblock AA-23 or Jabba's palace. So I decided to skip it in this fashion.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

On Coruscant Darth Sidious could not help but feel the explosion of rage that permeated the force from his apprentice. She tried to hide it, but she had never been that good at hiding her feelings from him, and this was a time when he had used this fact even more than usual. When he felt it, he laughed. Oh yes, this had gone down better than he had imagined, and all as he had foreseen. To bring his plan to fruition, all that remained was to give her that one last push. Once it was done...

To that end he utilized the HoloNet transciever. Being the Emperor, his was of course the highest priority that could be had. When Paqua's underling answered on the other end, he put just the right level of annoyance at the delay and general anger into his voice to send the man running off with record speed. That he wasn't just forwarded told him that Paqua wasn't in her quarters, likely already this close to going planet-side with two-thirds of the _Iron Fist_ 's Stormtroopers. True annoyance flooded him there. The clone rebellion on Kamino had been dealt with, but the Rebel spy who had managed to slice into the base programming and thus cause the failure of the programme and a clone rebellion that had massively damaged the facilities. More clones could and would be produced, but the idea of replacing the entirety of the Stormtrooper Corps with clones had died along with the prototypes. With the exception of the 501st, clones would be phased out. The danger of sabotage was just too great, somewhat ironic when one considered the role the clones had played during the rise of the New Order. That this rebellion had also killed one of Sidious' other plans, those related to the Deep Core, was something no one would ever find out, and those few that had known even parts of it had already been dealt with.

Paqua appeared and Sidious pushed the matter from his mind, and decided to push forward.

 _"What is thy bidding, my Master?"_

"I have felt a great disturbance in the force."

 _"A rebel cell has freed the family of the so-called Senator Amidala."_ Paqua replied and gave a short run-down of what had happened.

Palpatine was pleased. Even though he would have preferred to have them stand trial on Coruscant, this had opened up an opportunity to rid himself of one more piece of his Palpatine persona. And if he played it right...

"Clearly, if you had thought to take proper precautions, this would not have happened, Lady Paqua. Do you at least have an idea where they are?"

He didn't need to be close enough to feel her emotions to be able to tell that she was angry at getting told off like a young child. 'Good,' he thought, 'let your hate flow through you, my apprentice... and then do what you're told.'

 _"My men are searching as we speak, my Master, but there are indications that they left the planet before we could institute a full blockade."_

Glacial words followed. _That_ certainly was not something Sidious had wanted, and he felt the anger building within him. He let this fuel his connection to the Dark Side, and he knew that he would have to order a new batch of training droids very soon.

"How do we know this, my apprentice?"

 _"One of the members of the group that freed them was captured by pure chance, Master. Eventually, he... was persuaded to talk. He didn't know everything, except that the plan was to get them off-world."_

"And you are sure you have managed to make him tell you everything?" Sidious asked, knowing the answer, but deciding to use it to needle Paqua again. He could sense that she was close to the brink, and with a few well-chosen words the outcome he wanted would be very close at hand.

 _"The rebels are operating in cells. All he knew and all the rest of his cell knew that they had to bring them to a certain place at a certain time and hand them over for transportation off-world. The person they handed them over to left along with them, Master."_

Outwardly Palpatine remained perfectly calm.

Inwardly on the other hand it was another matter entirely. He knew that now there was little to no chance to ever find them again. If the rebel scum were smart, and they usually were, he had to admit, then they would have taken steps to make them effectively untraceable. Even if his Hands, and the Emperor's Hands would be tasked with this, managed to find the ship that had taken them off Naboo, then at some point they would have been taken over by a ship directly part of the Rebel fleet and therefore unfindable. This would clearly embolden the Rebel sympathisers in the Senate, but there was little else that could be done about that at the moment, and what he had in mind would take care of that for the moment. It was meant not only as a message to Skywalker, Amidala and the other Rebel scum but also those who supported them. It would not last forever, but right now it was what had to be done. After all, he still needed the Senate.

"Well, then you had better try and find them. Start with the Queen of Naboo. I can forsee that she will be unwilling to betray her rebel friends," he said, not mentioning that he had gone through great pains to ensure that this was so, for an opportunity such as today, "so carry out a suitable form of punishment and solve that problem, as we discussed."

Sidious put in one last barb. "For once."  
 _"Yes, my Master."_

"See to it that you do."

With that, he cut the connection. And then, when no one was there to see him, he grinned. Good.

* * *

The Emperor's figure faded into nothingness and Paqua rose to her feet. She was glad that the Emperor had not been too probing in his questions, or he would have discovered that she had already had the Queen arrested in order to facilitate her cooperation. Trun had advised against it, using up all of his leeway and though she could see his point, her anger had been boiling when the Queen had claimed to be entirely unaware of how the former Senator's family had escaped or been moved off the planet. Paqua had taken care to interrogate the Queen herself, though between her being the Queen of one of the more important planets in this part of the Galaxy and a strong-willed person, certain means of persuasion had been denied to her. The Queen's adamant refusal of any knowledge had been infuriating, and the latest round of questions had been what had caused the uproar her Master had felt.

Trun, who had remained unseen outside the pickup range of the transceiver, decided to speak.

"Milady, the Emperor has suggested what I think..."

Paqua nodded. Trun felt uncomfortable and hoped that Paqua, who had to feel his emotions, believed that it was because he thought the political consequences would be immense. They would be, and he thought that, but more than that, what the Emperor had all but ordered was just plain wrong in his opinion. He was a loyal servant of the Empire, no doubt about it, but what was suggested here had so far always been a theoretical exercise to him. Being aware of the hypocrisy in this chance didn't change how he felt.

"He has."

"With all due respect, mylady, but you do realize why he never issued a direct order?"

"Of course I do. The Emperor is aware of what needs to be done to sweep the Rebel scum from the Galaxy, but at the same time appearances must be maintained. So if things are done that those unaware of the bigger picture in the galaxy and wavering in their loyalty would not understand, he must be able to maintain deniability. If the public in the galaxy then understand what I am capable of doing to those elements disloyal to the Empire, so much the better. In the end he is much more important than me."

Trun knew that there was more to it than this, and that she would never be this selfless if she could be sure that nothing of what she said would ever make it's way back to Coruscant's centres of power, but there was a certain truth to it in the sense that the Emperor would want to maintain plausible deniability about this. Naboo was not only a world primarily settled by humans, but also the Emperor's own homeworld. So far Trun had had little reason to talk with the Emperor about private matters and he valued his life too much to ever really do it, but if there was one thing he was good at it was reading between the lines of what people said, and he was fairly certain that the Emperor hated his own heritage for some reason.

Of course it would not do for that to ever be public knowledge, mostly because it would not fit with the somewhat grandfatherly persona he liked the public to see.

"Agent, do you have... issues with carrying it out?"

"Of course not, Milady." he lied, "it is just that... I'm not quite sure of the long-term consequences."

"There will not be any. Or at least none that would be detrimental to the Empire. If anything, this will strike fear into the hearts of those who dare oppose us, it will teach the Rebels out there a lesson about the Empire's will and it will punish the core of the Rebellion."

She was of course talking about Senator Skywalker, though Trun would never call her that in public, and he could see why this was done, but did they have to go that far?"

"You worry, Agent."

Trun shrugged. "That's what I do, Milady. Occupational hazard, I suppose."

She looked at him and then shrugged in a odd show of emotion.

"The perils of working with Intelligence. In any case, the ships we need should be here in a few hours, but we will not wait. We will begin operations as soon as we have withdrawn all our assets from the surface. You will order the Queen released first."

"Yes, milday." Trun said and all but fled the room, suddenly unable to remain.

Paqua meanwhile walked over to the viewscreen used for in-ship communications and keyed up an orbital picture for the planet. She looked at and studied it for a few minutes before connecting to the bridge. The _Iron Fist_ 's captain answered instantly. Paqua spoke with implacable durasteel in her voice.

"Initiate the Base Delta Zero protocol."

 **tbc**

 **Yes, I did it! And I don't regret a thing!**

 **On a more serious note, I did not do it because of the Gungans or something. I did however plan this for a very, very long time, I think somewhere around when I decided that Luminara Unduli was going to come back, I also decided that Naboo was going to get the chop at some point. For what it's worth, I already know who is going to make an acquaintance with the Imperial Planetary Ore Extractor too.**

 **The part with the clones was originally supposed to be the core of an entire episode, but I decided to ditch it a few months ago, one because it would have unbalanced the entirety of the Heresyverse main line of stories, meaning five focusing on the Prequel generation and other five focusing on the OT generation, two for this hypothetical sixth story I had only the clone plot and nothing else really, even more so since elements of it were taken to form Episode V. When I get around to writing and you to reading it, you'll see what I mean. The sixth episode would've been bloatware on par with a cheap chinese laptop.**

 **That said, the Clone rebellion is something that I might write a side-story on at some point.**

 **Also, no * censored due to PG-16* Emperor clones. Thank all that's holy for that. Palpatine is also so over the top in the movies sometimes, it's really hard to write him.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

 _'Emperor Palpatine likely encouraged Darth Paqua to destroy Naboo in order to punish Padmé Skywalker as well as to rid himself of a personal history that he hated, at least that is what most sources close to him or Paqua indicate. Given his end, we can hardly ask the man himself, now can we... In any case, to understand any other motivations he may have had, we have to look at the galactic reaction to all this. It may be surprising from our perspective, given what happened after the Death Star was unleashed, but you have to remember that at the time, and especially on the Core World where things really mattered, and still do today, a vast majority of the population supported the Empire for a very long time. The somewhat cynical 'threshold of suffering and pain' had yet to be crossed. Oh, there was a certain backlash, in the Senate and to a lesser extent the general public, but between Imperial control of the press and a general apathy towards worlds that were seen as being in rebellion, it quickly faded away and people went back to bushiness as usual. For the most part at least. If we assume the above speculations about his motives to be true, then all this played into his hands. He certainly encouraged it by 'regretting the actions of loyal but overzealous subordinates' in a situation 'caused and encouraged by rebellious elements', never mind that from then on out admitting to being from Naboo was a quick way to end up on the blacklist. Of course the Republic reacted very differently, as did Padmé Skywalker, once she found out that is.'_

 _Professor Tycho Deran, lecturing on Galactic History at the University of Alderaan, 163 AJE_

En route to the survivor colony

Padmé was the first to wake with her husband thrashing the bed next to her. She was experienced how Anakin was when he had nightmares, and it wasn't something that she had seen much since the Exodus. Even not being a Force user, she could sense that her husband was, deep within, truly happy for probably the first time in his life. And now... now he was like he had been during the war. At least this time she what she had to do, so she reached out and shook him by the shoulder. She begged him to wake up for quite some time before he settled down and eventually opened his eyes. What looked back at her worried frown was something she had never encountered before from him. It was a mixture of anger and fear that was so unlike him that she was worried for a split-second, but when he sensed her worry, Anakin immediately reached up to take her hand in his.

"A nightmare, Angel."

Of course that didn't help, because instead of feeling better, she sighed and looked at him. "Last time you had [I]those[/I], dear husband of mine, we ended up fleeing Coruscant with nothing but the clothes on our back." The look she gave him was not quite the universe-destroying weapon that wives had deployed since time began, but it came close.

"It's not like that, Padmé." he replied and when he saw that she didn't quite believe it, he hugged and pulled her closer. "It really is, I promise."

And it really was. He was still rattled by what he had dreamt, but the actual details were already fading so fast he couldn't recall any of it beyond fleeting emotions, worry, regret and sadness.

"So what is it then?" she asked, still obviously worried.

He sat up and sighed. It was all so difficult to explain this to someone who was not Force sensitive. "I'm not sure. It was..." Anaking sighed, struggling for the correct words. "It was a wave of death and destruction, as if emanating from millions as they died. Somewhere..."

He trailed off but Padmé returned the hug as far as she was able in her current condition, knowing only too well how he was. "Oh Ani..."

Before she could say anything more or he could reply, Anakin sensed a familiar presence approaching the hatch to the small room they had been given as their quarters.

"Obi Wan is outside, and I think I know why." Anakin said instead and they rose out of bed before putting on some robes and letting his Master in.

"You felt it too, didn't you, Obi Wan?"

His old master nodded "I don't know what happened, but it was bad, very, very bad." He looked at Anakin and then continued. "But I think that it was worse for you, wasn't it?"

When Anakin said nothing and Padmé only raised an eyebrow in response Obi Wan grinned and chuckled before turning serious again. "I've learned not to dismiss things when I can sense this sort of distress from him." Without elaborating any further he looked at Anakin. "I wish that we could do something about this, whatever it is..."

Anakin shook his head. "You're not alone with that, Master. But we have a mission to perform, and we can't even send a message back to Weytun from all the way out here."

"I know..."

Padmé sighed. "It's sad that I'm not surprised that Imperial atrocities are the first thing that springs to mind when something like this happens. Hard to believe we've gotten used to seeing those things already."

"For what it's worth, you're not alone, Angel."

Padmé smiled sadly, clearly not happy with the current state of the Galaxy in this regard but aware that she was already doing everything within her power to change things. So she said nothing more about it and instead announced her intention to go back to bed, knowing that her husband wouldn't find any more sleep that night. True to this, Anakin and Obi Wan both stepped out into the corridor and decided to go to the next best thing to an observation lounge that existed on the ship, the secondary bridge. In a blatant abuse of his station as a General in the Republic military, Anakin used his override codes to open the door and sat down in the pilot's seat without powering up any of the systems.

"You didn't tell her everything." Obi Wan stated matter-of-factly and Anakin shrugged.

"There wasn't much more to say. It was hunch more than anything else." he replied, though he really hated the term, "Just a hunch that all this is going to hit a lot closer to home than we might think once we get back to Weytun."

He looked back out the viewports again but before Obi Wan could do more than open his mouth, Anakin raised his flesh-hand. "I know that the mission we are on is more important at the moment, trust me."

"I do, old friend, I do. And can understand why you didn't want her to worry even more than she does already. The last thing we need is her going into stress-induced labour weeks too early."

Neither had to say anything to let the other one know that Anakin appreciated Obi Wan's views on this and did what he needed to. He pushed the feelings and lingering afterimages of the night aside and decided to concentrate on the mission at hand. His old Master on the other hand seemed to have a few more things to say, and to his dying day he would never know why he had decided that then and there was the time and place to have that particular conversation.

"Anakin, there is one thing I've never told you about those days. Remember when we left Coruscant, just after Luke and Leia were born, when Palpatine had just announced the Empire?"

"How could I forget?" Anakin replied with a smile that made it obvious why he remembered that time so well.

Obi Wan on the other hand sighed. "When you and Padmé were listening to that, I... had a visit. From Master Qui-Gon."

Anakin's head turned in an instant. "What did he say?"

"He told me that I had done well, not that I felt that way at the time." Obi Wan shook his head with a fond grin at the memory, "He was very insistent on that, though I couldn't really believe it at the time."

"If that had happened at any other time I would probably agree with you, but I know what Palpatine's plan was for me." Anakin replied and was puzzled when his weak attempt at humour fell on deaf ears.

"Anakin... those dreams you had, about Padmé dying in childbirth? According to Qui Gon, if you had turned they would have been a self-fulfilling prophecy."

"What do you mean?"

"He implied.. no, he outright said that if you had turned to the Dark Side, you would have been the death of every single Jedi in the temple, from the Council down to the smallest youngling, as well as..."

Anakin's face seemed to have turned to ash, and when he spoke is was as if someone had ripped out his soul. "And I would have killed her."

Never had Obi Wan seen his friend so heartbroken, so desolate, so self-loathing. And he knew that Anakin did not deserve to feel that way about himself. Whatever that dark version of him might have done, the version of Anakin now sitting in that chair in front of him would never do it. If he hadn't already been convinced down to his core that his former Padawan would never fall to the Dark Side after what had happened, he would have been even more convinced of that now. His knowledge of the world that could have been was fragmented at best, and he had already sworn to himself that he would take the knowledge of his counterpart's final lighsabre fight against the evil monster that Anakin had turned into with him to his funeral pyre, but there were a few things that Anakin needed to know. Anakin would probably always blame himself for those that had died and would die in the fight against the Empire, but he needed to be aware of just how much worse it could have been. From Padmé's death over what little he knew to Ahsoka's fate to the glimpses of Luke and Leia. Clone War Anakin would have let what he was about to say go to his head, but this one...

"Palpatine twisted and manipulated you, and I have my share of blame to bear for that, you know why. That version of you did not come to me with those dreams, that version of you did not rush to Ahsoka's rescue, that version of you did not confess to the council and save the root and core of the Jedi Order. He was evil, more machine than man, but that is not you, that can never be you, and you must not blame yourself for something that you did not do. Nine out of ten Jedi on Weytun would be dead without your acts before the Exodus, never forget that. Yes, a version of you would have done these things, but you did not. Instead, consider how much better the life of those you love is. Padmé is alive and sleeping on this very ship, carrying a child that would never have existed in that world. Ahsoka is on Weytun, looking after the twins instead of trying to survive in a world where she would have been among a paltry number of survivors, and the two of us are side by side. Always remember that."

Obi Wan paused, searching for the right words to say. "You have trusted the guidance the Force when Palpatine tried to pervert and turn you, accepting the consequences that might have come with that. You blame yourself for what your other form would have done?" He paused and Anakin's reaction was an answer all it's own. "Stop doing that, old friend. None of this happened, and every step we take in this new direction, every second you live with your family at your side is one farther away from that awful world. You may want to focus on that. Always remember, none of what I just told you actually happened, so for once in your life actually listen to me."

Remaining silent for what had to be several minutes, Anakin eventually turned back towards him. "I... think you're right, Obi Wan. But there is one thing that you have to know in return. The knowledge of what I would have done will always be with me, and it will affect me to some degree."

"Let the Force guide your actions, Anakin."

"And it will. But many decisions I make will still be influenced by this." He smiled distantly, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Ahsoka would say that it is in my nature."

With a sigh he turned back to the swirl of hyperspace. "I don't know what to say. Oddly enough I don't feel guilty, not really, but at the same time I think that it's my duty to ensure that none of this, or nothing like this, comes to pass."

Now it was Obi Wan's turn to smile. "I think that's all we can expect right now. Now, we'll be at the colony in a few hours, and I think you should go back to your wife."

Anakin grinned, honestly and truly this time before nodding and following the suggestion.

 **tbc**

 **That last part... don't ask me where it came from, because I ain't got the foggiest idea. It also contains a small retcon in that Obi Wan is now aware of how he died in the OT, though beyond that part this scene effectively wrote itself.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

The planetoid was just about as barren as they expected, but the faint energy readings given off by what was left of the _Outbound Flight_ made it obvious that the information given to the two delegations was accurate, even if none of the Jedi on board had been able to sense the life on board the ships. After the three ships dropped out of lightspeed, the Chiss frigate that had led them here assumed a position to lead them through the treacherous terrain towards the colony. Even though even the Republic cruiser would have had no trouble at all forcing it's way past it, diplomatic niceties were observed, quite aside from the navigational hazards. To avoid a spat over who got to be the one to make contact, both sides had consented to letting the Chiss have the honour. After all, they had been the ones to discover the colony by pure chance and make first, tentative contact. Their Captain was a fresh young officer whose loyalties to Vereen and Inasan, Padmè's considered opinion, were solid enough to ensure that events happened without any problems from that end. It wasn't that she knew him very well, but the two of them did not strike her as people who would leave this sort of thing up to chance and whatever their ultimate goal might be, they would do what they could to ensure that it went their way.

By now they were close enough for the highly sophisticated sensor systems aboard their ship to give them a decent enough visual picture of the site to allow distinction of the old ships that housed the population.

She looked over to where Anakin and Obi Wan were studying the readouts of the colony with an intensity that made it blindingly obvious that they were not listening to a word the Chiss were saying. It was so unlike them that she decided that once again their Force abilities came into play, and once again she wished she had even a shred of what her husband and his oldest friend were capable of. But she didn't, and wishing for it wouldn't change anything. Instead she stepped over to Anakin and hesitantly placed a hand on his shoulder. "What is it?"

Anakin turned towards her with a pained expression on his face, one t hat she knew he only had when he had to do something he really, really didn't like.

"Padmé, I think you should be the one to make contact down there, with maybe someone from the ship."

"Weren't you going to do that?"

"Yes, but..." Anakin glanced at Obi Wan who only nodded. "Padmé, between what the Chiss have told us and what Obi Wan and I can sense in the Force... they would not react very well if they were to be met with Jedi."

She glanced at him and considered the reports she'd read, finding herself in agreement.

"I can't say that I blame them." she said, "Though it has to be said that we still know preciously little beyond what we were told."

It seemed the survivors hadn't been questioned in any depth when the colony had been discovered and contact been made. What exactly had happened in the days leading up to the _Outbound Flight_ 's final demise was in some parts a mystery to everyone but the people involved, but neither Anakin or Obi Wan had been that surprised when reading that if the survivors were to be believed, Master C'baoth had tried to create a Jedi-led society with himself very much in charge. Anakin had long since been disabused from his former admiration of the old Master, saying that looking back, he likely could have seen it coming.

Keeping all that in mind, Padmé could understand why they would dislike Jedi. "We have to consider the possibility that a majority of the survivors will want to join the Empire."

"Maybe even all of them if what I fear is true." Obi Wan said without taking his eyes off the planetoid that was fast growing larger in the forward viewport. "Not that I could fault them for that."

Anakin laughed derisively. "I have to say, I'm looking forward to asking the Council what they were thinking when they approved this project. What Palpatine thought... well, I intend to ask him too."

No one answered, as all of them were caught up in their own thoughts.

Upon entering orbit, they did as discussed. Both Jedi stepped back from the mission and Padmé, accompanied only by one of the ship's crew and entirely too unarmed for Anakin's liking, flew down. That all attempts at making contact with the colony had failed didn't help.

To Padmé it almost looked as if the dreadnoughts that formed most of the colony had been landed by a pilot that flew like Anakin, in that they were clearly crashed but somehow still looked like they were capable of flying again some day. She knew from the energy readings that this was at the very least unlikely to happen, as none of them produced enough of it to get the drive systems running. What was still working was the docking hatch the Chiss had used when they had first accessed the colony and Padmé had to grin whern they reached it and docked just as the Imperials arrived. Being first here wouldn't do much, but still…

The hatch leading out of the shuttle and into the ship opened, but the crewman insisted on going first. Padmé, who would have bristled at that before she had had the twins, allowed him to do so, though it turned out to having been pointless, as there was no reception of any sort waiting for them.

'Well, time to let the Imps land.' she thought and with that she had the shuttle depart and make way for the others. Ambassador Kaylak stepped through the same hat not much later, grinning at her, knowing full well why she was in a good mood.

"Nothing personal, Senator?"

Padmé knew that he wouldn't have used her old title if there had been anyone around to hear beyond people who he knew ouldn't tell on him, but it was still enough of an olive branch to make Padmé offer one in return.

"No, Ambassador. She said before looking down the corridor. It looked like one of a million corridors she'd seen on hundreds of ships over the years, and it was empty up to the next intersection in bnoth directions. The Imperial Ambassador could see what she was doing and sighed.

"A full diplmatic reception was too much to ask, but it would have been nice if they had sent someone to meet us anyway. I take it your attempts to establish communication with them failed too?"

She nodded and was about to say something to that effect when she heard the unmistakable sound of a blaster's energy pack being inserted. Whirling around as fast as she was able in her current condition she the barrel of one being aimed at her head, the owners having come from where a panel in the wall had been removed, presumably closing of a maintenance access of some sort when it was in place.

Before she could say anything, never mind move again, the blaster's owner spoke.

"Come here to finish what you started, eh? Come to kill what the blue-faces left of us?"

"Ehh...no." she said, somewhat rattled by the experience. 'In Maker's name pull yourself together, girl.' she thought and cleared her throat. "Until a few days ago we didn't even know you were still alive. We came here to see for ourselves and offer… transportation elsewhere." After all, she knew that the Chiss had brought them up to speed as to what had happened in the galaxy since they had left, but exactly how much had they been told?

At that she glanced at Kaylak and noticed that he too was covered by someone. By the look on his face he seemed to approve of what she had said, and once more she made a mental tick in the 'we can make a deal with this man' coloumn. How long until the Imperial side would get one?

"The Empire would be glad to take you in."

Not long at all then. With a sigh Padmé lowered her hands. "As would the Republic."

"Hrm." the one pointing his blaster at her replied. Clearly, he didn't quite believe what he was hearing. Still, he lowered his blaster, so some progress had been made. "You better talk to the Director then."

The Director was a person that turned out to be a tall human male with greying hair and missin an eye. Sitting at a table in a non-descript room he opened the conversation.

"Why should we trust the Republic after what the Jedi did to us?"

Not good.

* * *

 _What happened next is once again one of those events that would have ramifications that went far beyond the immediately apparent. Compare it to the Millennium Falcon being stolen from Lando Calrissian by a certain someone. Could Calrissian, at the time still a drifting gambler and by all accounts a bit of a cheat too, only starting out to become the gas baron we know, have suspected what role that ship would one day play? While both events can be argued to have had a galactic impact, the sudden appearance of an unknown ship next to the Outbound Flight Colony certainly impacted more people directly._

 _Professor Tycho Deran, lecturing on Galactic History at the University of Alderaan, 163 AJE_

* * *

The object, as it appeared on the _Another Chance_ 's scopes and eventually became visible to the naked eye was a stuff out of nightmares. Sized somewhere between themselves and the Star Destroyer, it was unlike any ship Anakin had ever seen. While there were larger space-born lifeforms, this one, while it looked like it was biological was easily identified as something else entirely as it opened fire on the _Chimaera_ as soon as the intruder's crew determined that the ships orbiting the planetary body were not of the same make. The Chiss frigate and the Imperial ship returned fire immediately, though aboard the _Another Chance_ Captain Taraan looked at Anakin and Obi Wan. The two Jedi exchanged a silent conversation through their Force bond for what seemed to be an eternity to the onlookers on the bridge before Obi Wan sighed and nodded. "Fire at will, Captain."

Not bothering with a reply, Taraan started giving out a string of orders, among them for the shuttle to pick up their delegation. Anakin watched the unfolding battle with outward calm, but he knew that to Obi Wan his worry and fear had to be obvious, it was to the point where Anakin did not even complain about there not being a fighter for him to fly.

The sudden enemy was tough for his size, very much so. When the Chiss had approached them from behind and unleashed a furious barrage into their aft deflectors, the ship had let off from the Star Destroyer and concentrated all it's weapons on the other foe. By what Anakin could see from here without looking at the scanners, they used some sort of plasma weapon instead of ordinary weapons. Not that unknown, but due to the relative abundance of Tibanna Gas it wasn't really common. The Chiss had suffered for what they had done, because even as the _Another Chance_ joined the fray and fired all the weapons she had, the Chiss frigate suffered a catastrophic collapse of her forward deflectors. Plasma impacted the hull directly and began to eat it's way inside. The enemy prepared to deliver the killing blow, but now the Imperials finally managed to launch their trump card: A complement of TIE fighters and bombers. Going off the numbers, Pallaeon was holding around half of it back for now, probably unwilling to show his entire hand. Between the strafing runs and concussion missiles fired at what had to be minimum safe distance, as well as the fire from the Republic ship, they managed to force the enemy away from the Chiss vessel.

Over the next few minutes the fight slowly moved towards the colony, which didn't really assuage Anakin's worry. Though eventually the enemy's shields gave way under the constant battering and bolts from the _Another Chance_ as well as the _Chimaera_. Red and green fire impacted the hull near what was presumably the engine section, and something on board exploded. It exploded with enough force to send the ship hurtling away from it's enemies, and then something happened that tore into Anakin's soul in a way that made Obi Wan turn around in alarm. The enemy ship hurtled towards the planetoid at breackneck speed and slammed into the aft part of the colony before exploding in a gigantic fireball.

Anakin dropped any pretence at being calm and reached out for his wife through the Force. When he failed to do so, Anakin sent out a blast of emotion and sheer anguish into the Force that was strong enough to nearly overwhelm Obi Wan and that on Weitun a certain pair of twins woke in the middle of the night and screamed for dear life.

 **tbc**

 **Since I have access to neither of the novels I'm making a few assumptions as to what the asteroid and the colony actually look like. And how Obi Wan and Anakin managed to sense the Jedi segregation, I'm making the assumption that unlike Luke and Mara they were more trained to be able to do this sort of thing and they were also broadly familiar with those who were on the ship.**

 **All this is also one of the primary reasons why this took so long to get done. I tried finding them, but couldn't, at least not for a decent deal.**

 **On a more serious note: After years of writing, two Computers and a third one I wrote this on, four mice, three keyboards (of which one was merely replaced with a mechanical one and that one then with a better one) and what feels like twenty million cups of tea, as many bottles of Coca Cola and enough junk food to feed half my town, we've finally reached the point where I can set up what made me start this to begin with: The Yuuzhan Vong getting the massive, galaxy-sized kick up the backside they so very richly deserve, if only for killing Chewie, never mind the casualties and damage inflicted on the galaxy at large. To me the Vong represent all that is wrong with post-OT legends, and I have to admit, all this is a cathartic exercise to a degree as well as worldbuilding in a universe I love. That said, the war will be neither easy nor short.**

 **Originally, there was going to be a scene where the Another Chance and the Chimaera had to pull out and leave the Colony behind for a few days without being able to evacuate anyone. However, while Anakin will have to face a situation like that at some point, here it just didn't work out. Mostly because any force large enough to drive off a Star Destroyer which is by far the biggest threat here wouldn't leave the colony alone. So I changed it to what it is.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

 _"You finally understood, haven't you, Anakin?" the voice he knew so well said. "You understood why Obi Wan was so worried and why that rule was held on to for so long."_

 _"I understand."_

 _"Good, because then, you will also understand that you still acted well. There are worlds where you did not."_

 _ **He saw a monster of technology, breathing sounds in the semi-darkness that let his skin crawl, a crimson sabre lighting up, with terrified Republic crew fleeing from the figure. He saw that same figure again, fighting an older version of Luke, slicing his hand off. He saw the same figure again, leaning on a grave made in the Naboo style.**_

 _"There are worlds where there is no force in you."_

 _ **He saw himself in the cockpit of a starfighter. He saw himself toiling in the sands of Tatooine, even as overhead, the Empire and the Republic were locked in a deadly struggle.**_

 _"There is worlds where there is no force, where the basic rules of the universe are different."_

 _ **He saw the strangest ship he had ever seen, a white entity, a saucer, with a long, thin neck connecting it to a large tube, with two more connecting to two other tubes tipped with red lights. He saw a large, circular and entirely artificial world, with a soldier in green armour battling an alien menace he was unfamiliar with.**_

 _"There is worlds where everything you know is a work of fiction."_

 _ **He saw a large crowd of people standing in line for something, dressed up as anything from stormtroopers to Jedi Masters with varying degrees of convincingness, a poster of himself and others, with his Sith counterpart looming in the background. He saw an anthropomorphic mouse shaking hands with a grey-bearded man.**_

 _"And yet, none of this is your concern, Anakin. Concentrate on the here and now, young one."_

 _He found himself back on the bridge._

For the most terrifying ten minutes of his life, Anakin finally, for the first time, really understood why the ancient Jedi had forsaken attachments. It was something that would remain with him for the rest of his days, and that would forever remain one of his greatest fears. A piece of him however told him to calm down and be rational, and Anakin Skywalker listened. He forced himself to calmly sort through the assault of emotions and feelings coming from the surface, discard those that were Force users and those that could not possibly be his Angel. Oddly enough, the presence he sensed first was not that of his wife, but rather that of what he then knew to be his as yet unborn daughter. Neither Anakin, nor any of the Jedi Masters he later spoke with, could ever fully explain why, but for several minutes, her Force presence was powerful enough to cut through the mess of everyone else like a beacon every bit as bright and powerful as Anakin's own. Seconds later, Anakin sensed Padmé, worried and scared, yet at the same time every bit as determined as she always was. Relief flooded him, and with a sigh, he returned his attention to the matter at hand. Trying not to get shot out of space by the... whoever it was. Obi Wan nodded at him, and Anakin turned to some of the other officers.

"Communications!" he all but yelled.

"No reply from the colony, General." someone replied. "The Imps are saying that they don't get anything either."

Anakin calmed himself. She was fine, she was alive, as was his daughter.

He watched as the shuttles started to disembark, even as the Alderaani frigate and the Imperial Star Destroyer moved towards the colony. For a moment there was tension on the bridge when the TIEs flew past them, but no green laser fire came their way, and even without using the Force to sense the lack of duplicity, Pallaeon didn't strike Anakin as the sort of officer who would go back on his word. He was an officer of the sort that had mostly died out with the rise of the Empire, and he hoped that he would be posted very far away from anywhere near where the Republic operated.

"You know Anakin, five years ago you would have been on the first shuttle down there." Obi Wan said as they watched the view from the bridge window.

"Believe that I'm tempted, Obi Wan. Trust me when I say that I want to be down there more than anything, but this is as good an opportunity as any to make myself learn."

There was no need to explain what he wanted to learn. Anakin, as much as he had changed, still blamed himself for nearly walking into Palpatine's trap with seeing eyes, and at the same time he still felt the same about the things that had nearly made him do it. Obi Wan knew that it was something that worried his old Padawan, that his love for his family would once more lead him to temptation. It wasn't as if he agreed with that notion, not with the way Anakin was now, and he also knew that Anakin had changed more for the better than he was himself aware of. But this was not the time to talk about that.

"So who were our uninvited guests?"

"We have to ask the Chiss about that, Anakin. Someone who attacks the Ascendancy like this is bound to have popped up before."

Anakin was inclined to agree, and noted with approval that he only had to look at one of the other crewmembers on the bridge before she tried to open communications, but without immediate success. Desperately trying to distract himself from the work the shuttle crews had to be doing, Anakin looked at the scopes showing the operations by the _Chimaera_. That Captain... they would have to keep an eye out for him.

* * *

The attack had come with little to no warning for those in the colony, but a small part of her mind was glad that it had happened, because Padmé had no means to hide the Force signature she was still carrying around with her, and the hatred so many here had for the Jedi was as obvious as their decision to go with the Imperials would be. The looks she had gotten when telling about the Jedi Order and the Republic made her glad for the distraction, and reinforced her decision to use her maiden name for the moment. If there was anyone who would be remembered badly beyond the Jedi already with the expedition, it would be her husband and his old mentor. Having spent a lot of time going over the background material as written down by Anakin and Obi Wan from their memories, she was heartily glad that Master C'baoth had died long ago. His was a toxic influence the Republic could do without, and repairing the damage his theories had done to these people would be a gargantuan task at the best of times, which these certainly weren't.

She had only survived the attack because, somewhat ironically, she had been in the dreadnought where the force sensitives had been segregated in, which due to the way the _Outbound Flight_ had crashed was partially shielded from weapons fire and the impact of the ship itself. Even so, the losses the small colony had taken were staggering, and she didn't need to be an engineer to be able to tell that what was left wouldn't be viable for very much longer. The only advantage they had here was that the fighting was presumably over, so she turned to the more immediate prospects of survival. As far as she could see, the room seemed to be holding an atmosphere just fine, at least she couldn't smell anything beyond the tell-tale signs of burnt electronics somewhere, and the smokey air slowly getting pulled into one of the vents was visible enough for her to tell that at least part of the air circulation system of the crashed ship was still working. She herself was, thankfully, not heavily wounded, with only the place where her shoulder had slammed into the bulkhead as she had desperately tried to shield her unborn child even as she was falling. Thankfully she had succeeded. At that, she heard a groan and was reminded of the other people in the room. She turned and saw that Cartan, the spokesperson of what passed for government around here, stuck under the same piece of bulkhead she had so barely avoided. She knew that it had been a deliberate slight that she'd been farmed off on someone secondary, but she wasn't the sort of diplomat who let herself be bothered by it, and right at this moment, they had bigger fish to fry. She knew that they were only a few compartments away from where the... ghetto began, so getting there would be easy, but she also had confidence in the ships in orbit, and if Anakin had anything to say about it, sooner or later rescue shuttles would be landing down here. Right now she would even love to see the white standard armour of a stormtrooper, if it meant that more medical resources than these people could possibly had and certainly now needed was available.

Padmé knelt down next to him as much as she could, trying to see if he would survive the next twenty minutes. His pulse was weak, but thankfully constant. There were no large wounds she could see, only the usual cuts and bruises she could expect in this situation, and what felt like a very large bump on the back of his head, as she felt for it. Her hands came away clean, no blood. She reached over to where her own chair had fallen and used the seat cushion to elevate his head and make it more immobile.

Her biggest issue was the bulkhead, or rather what was left of it. Even without the extra passenger, she would have been unable to lift this on her own, so... maybe a lever of some sort... She looked around the room, trying to find if there was some sort of thing she could use as a lever. The best thing she could find was one of the table legs. It had been shoddily assembled, but the leg itself was made from some sort of sturdy piping, so when she propped it under the bulkhead and pushed with all her might, the bulkhead actually moved. Until Cartan cried out in pain, being jolted awake by something, presumably a piece of the bulkhead that was stuck in his body somewhere Padmé couldn't see from where she was. She immediately let go of the lever, and the man sighed in relief.

"Couldn't you have used something else to wake me up, Senator?"

The joke was very, very weak, but at least she knew that he was not only coherent, but also did not believe that she was doing this to end his life. As much as he hated, even loathed Jedi and Force users in general, he was apparently willing to take honest help when it was offered.

"It's about all I can do. We're on emergency power, and there is no water fountain in here." she replied, not saying that this broom closet had been another part of the calculated insult. She was under no illusion that what was happening right now would do anything to change his opinions, as frustrating as that was.

"Any idea what happened?"

"None." Padmé replied with a shake of her head, remembering the terrifying sound of static when she had tried her handheld communicator first thing after coming back to herself.

She half expected him to blame the Republic for the attack, same as he had blamed them for everything else wrong in the universe during their conversation, but it seemed that he was indeed capable of logic. "So you have no idea either who attacked us, don't you?"

"I still can't get through to the ship, so either something is still jamming the signal, my communicator is broken or..."

She shuddered. No, there was no chance that Anakin was dead. None. She refused to admit even the possibility. Even as she still knelt next to the official who had pretty much told her to go and take the long walk out of the short airlock, she placed her hand over her belly, promising her child that it's father was still alive. She didn't know if it was this gesture or if Cartan decided that they really did have better things to discuss than politics at this moment in time, but he sighed and turned his head as much as he could, in spite of the bump on the back if it and a likely slight concussion.

"Your first?" he asked, and Padmé grinned.

"My third, though the other two were twins."

Why was she sharing this information with him? She knew that his smiling face would be very different if he knew who the father of her children was, and that like any of the others, her children were all very powerful in the Force. Maybe it was the adrenaline wearing off, maybe it was her desire to distract both him and herself from the situation they found themselves in, maybe it was just motherly pride, she never knew.

"I am sorry for what I said earlier, Senator." Cartan said, grimacing as he touched the back of his head. "Damn, that hurts."

"You said many things, Mister Cartan."

He chuckled again. "The Jedi are what they are, and I know I will never convince you of that. You have spent the last five years with them, so of course you see things their way. And I would like you not to insult either of us by trying to convince me of your views. Since you are here, you have to be aware of what happened before we crashed on this gods-forsaken rock."

"I do." Padmé nodded, deciding that it would be more interesting to see where this was going. She did wonder though if it was because he'd been banged on the head and wasn't entirely aware of what he was saying. Not that she would stop him, this was the most approachable he'd been since she had come aboard. What nagged at the back of her mind was that she couldn't really blame him, blame any of them, as much as she despised their actions towards the Jedi, and as much as she wanted to keep all her children away from these people.

"Your offer was genuine." he said, leaving no room for any other interpretation of what he had said.

"It is."

"And you really do speak for your... government too."

She sensed that he didn't really want an answer to that, so she chose to ignore the way he had said it. And it wasn't as if the things she'd almost said came out, because in that moment she could hear voices yelling from the other side of the blocked door. She slowly, carefully rose to her feet, using the remains of the table as an aid, but before she could waddle over to the door, Cartan pulled his head up some.

"If it was by me, you could have them, only so that we could be rid of them."

"What convinced you?"

He laughed, but regretted it instantly, going by the grimace. "I don't like the Republic, Senator, and I will definitely go with the Imperials. At the same time, you were honest with me, so me stopping to act like a petulant child just because I don't like who you're working for is the least thing I can do. I used to work for the same diplomatic service you do."

That was about all she could expect under the circumstances.

"You'll find that not everyone is as I am, Mister Cartan. Not in the Republic, not in the Empire, not anywhere."

"With all due respect, in that case the galaxy would be a lot more boring."

She laughed.

tbc

Okay, I wrote everything from the switch to Padmé's POV in just about one sitting after several months of not working on this thing at all. Suffice it to say, my original outline for this chapter has long since disappeared to god knows where, and I had no idea what was originally supposed to go into that part. It's different for the next chapter, as I refine my generalized outline one chapter at a time, but there you go.


End file.
